I found this netbook(?) somewhere in old things and just wonder: can linux be installed on it?
No, you're not allowed. Now go to your room and think about what you've done.
Surely its easier to install Linux than android.
I want to know how they put android on it
well in a cosmic sort of sense, it already is. (android is based on a modified linux kernel). seriously though, check out https://antixlinux.com/ it's a distro to put on any computer, even ones that old.
MX Linux is the sister project, and I think it also can work on very old hardware.
It had problems with my multi monitor setup, but it booted so ridiculously fast, even on a live ISO. Certainly worth a look.
This looks like one of those low cost netbooks from the time where "EPad" and "MID" tablets were a thing. There is an edition of Windows CE floating around for these - but WiFi will not work, neither the modem if this has one built in.
No idea about Linux - there is a kernel so you're technically half way there, but considering most of these had a slow single core ARM CPU and 256MB of RAM on a good day, practical use is limited IMO
Just want to say good luck. Someone brought me one of these and asked to make it ready to be their university laptop in 2013. I worked real hard not to laugh because money was obviously tight but I just told them to return the pos to Amazon.
Most likely yes, as many others have said. Of course you'll likely have to pick a very lightweight DE.
As a fallback there is always NetBSD.
Probably
https://groups.google.com/g/vt8500-wm8505-linux-kernel/c/L1Q6OHDGDcM
https://archive.org/details/wm8650-linux
Yes you can, it won't be great though.
I used to maintain a Linux distribution called "OpenWM8650" (back in 2011 / 2012) which was specially aimed at the WM8650 and WM8505. It would run off the SD card. Which wasn't great, but the flash onboard support was horrible at best.
Maybe you can find some old information on it, on XDA because the website for the initial distribution is long gone.
https://archive.org/details/wm8650-linux It might have been archived here.
You can install Linux on anything you can get it on.
E: Please check out https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
Was a bit tongue-in-cheek mate, I’m sorry and it wasn’t fair because you are here looking for guidance.
Please check out Linux From Scratch: https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
It should! As long as you can get it to the bios screen you should be able to get it to boot a live USB. I actually resurrected my EeePC1005 two weeks ago with DamnSmallLinux2024.