“I think I’ve cracked this problem, and I’ve come up with a computer that runs Linux and costs about $15 USD.”
A 533 MHz Allwinner chip, 32 MB of RAM, a keyboard, a screen and a USB port, all for the price of lunch. No GUI and nothing fast. It runs scripts, pings servers and talks to USB gadgets, which covers most of what a pocket tool needs. A rooted prepaid phone does more, and it still costs twice as much.