TenOC
On the road -- Full time
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I have an old Dell Inspiron 15 series 3000 64-bit laptop. I am trying to use android-x86_64-9.0-r2 to convert it into an android “tablet” for my great-grandchild to run some educational games that are only available on android tablets. The installation went reasonably well. However, I cannot get the android laptop to find the WiFi connection. I assume I will need some type of new driver for the built-in WiFi card on the laptop.
Any help would be welcome on (1) finding driver and (2) instructions on how to install it is I do not know much about androids based operating system.
Please give me enough troubles, uncertainty, problems, obstacles and STRESS so that I do not become arrogant, proud, and smug in my own abilities, and enough blessings and good times that I realize that someone else is in charge of my life.
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1492
Arlington, VA
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I would find out make/model of the built-in(?) WiFi card installed in your laptop, and search for specific drivers for the Android x86 version you installed.
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memilanuk
Dry side of the Cascades
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As someone who went sort of the opposite direction for a while (running Linux on a Chromebook for a daily driver, well before it was officially supported), I can certainly appreciate this sort of project for the geeky personal gratification factor...
I still think you'd be way, way ahead in terms of time if you just go get them a new Android tablet or possibly a Chromebook.
I'm guessing if you managed to make it as far as installing and booting a foreign OS on PC hardware, you've got a reasonable familiarity with making things work. Kudos for you. I just question whether it's worth the effort.
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pbeverly
South Carolina
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I got my grands Fire Tablets. Easy to manage parental controls.
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APT
SE Michigan
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I have never heard of that conversion. I have installed Ubuntu on a new SSD to revive some old/slow laptops with good success. Honestly, I recommend just spending $100 or less on an actual Fire tablet. They go on sale a few times every year and can get many configurations under $100. They are much easier to maintain and manage vs. raw Android OS for parents and children.
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ItsyRV
Lost on the Blue Ridge Parkway
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Not sure about laptops but when doing the Android conversion on my old PC, I lost use of some built in added features like the wifi and extra front usb ports. I had to use a wifi dongle plugged into the rear usb ports to get wifi. The issue was that only one device could operate on the usb at a time. It could be because this was an old PC and the android conversion was done a couple years ago (old version). I haven't tried upgrading the android version as I really don't use it much.
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Gdetrailer
PA
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Depending on age, might be further ahead to buy a "kids" tablet, your laptop most likely will not survive being dropped for very long.
Depending on screen size they are not all that expensive compared to replacing even an old laptop..
FIND HERE
Kid's tablets have a full rubber cushion around the device which absorbs most drop impacts and are much lighter and portable than a laptop.
Those kids tablets were not around when we bought our DD her first tablet, after a few broken screens we found aftermarket rubber cases which helped greatly to extend the life of the screen.
Besides, unless you have a touch screen on the laptop, some android APPs may not work well using a mouse or laptop touchpad.
If that laptop has at least a dual core processor and 3Gb of Ram, Windows 10 will work fine and dandy on it. If you had Win7 on it, you can run Win10 installer in upgrade mode and it will activate with digital license using the Win7 license key.
I have done this Win7 to Win10 conversion with a Acer laptop with single core AMD processor some time ago.. A bit slow booting but once booted up, it works OK, not a speed demon..
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1492
Arlington, VA
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APT wrote:I have never heard of that conversion.
I did the android-x86 conversion to an old DELL 10.4" laptop running WINXP ages ago. Did get the built-in WiFi to work fine. Though remember having to do some separate install to get Google Play access. Not sure if you even have to do that anymore.
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NamMedevac 70
Reno
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Joined: 11/09/2020
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What are benefits of using an Android laptop compared to regular windows laptop?
Inquiring minds would like to know.
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joebedford
Seriously thinking about heading home soon.
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I did a W10/Ubuntu dual boot on one of my PCs and it works and inter-networks just fine. I haven't managed to get it to see the W10 PCs on my network though.
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