This is my solar powered setup. A somewhat old Pixel 6a that fell from a foot and a half (really!?), a 10w Solar setup that was around 20$ on amazon. And an old compost container I have too many of. Ill be giving it a proper 3d printed case when I get a chance (and a host of other changes) but for now this works! Its worth about 40$ in total (the phone is now worth about 21$ on the open market).
Website: https://solar.chrisco.me/
Website was made with a collection of scripts, apache2 (nginx for some reason did not install, errors), and termux. Ill open source the whole setup in a bit. Theres not much to it to be honest.
Hopefully keeping the battery at 80% will help the lifetime of the battery. I may bump it up at some point if it keeps dieing because lack of sunlight. But we shall see.
More info in the link. I couldn't get Piefed to repost from a GotoSocial link.
Which Linux distro would work on a phone? I have an old zenfone 8 lying around.
postmarketOS, mobian, etc.. these are 'real' linux distros that work without the android parts. as your device doesn't have a (near-)mainline kernel port i believe you can boot postmarketOS with the stock downstream kernel, though many peripherals won't function.
halium based distros like ubports and droidian use a part of the android userspace to make those peripherals work, which can be better if mainline is not possible.