any FOSS alternatives to raspberry pi?
I am currently using a raspberry pi but it is non-free hardware and firmware(bootcode) the software has binary blobs and the RPI foundation seems to include licensed wolfram and java as default installed. Although there are projects on reverse engineering bootcode to make it FLOSS but it appears to take looooonng. I bought it since it is the only thing available that can be easily bought at a low price ($48). I am looking for alternatives that is free open source software and hardware that is low cost too.
The Libre Tea Computer Card (65$) plus the Micro Desktop Housing (55$, which you will not have to pay again when updating the card) is more expensive that what you are looking for but it is more powerful too (in particular twice more RAM) and includes 8 GB NAND for storage, whereas you have to separately buy a MicroSD (about 7$ for 8 GB) for the Raspberry Pi: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop
the Libre Tea works with the "USB + HDMI Cable Set for Standalone Operation" ($15), as an alternative to the Micro Desktop Housing ($55)
What about olimex and banana pi?
Those single-board computers use AllWinner systems-on-a-chips. They have "serious flaws", ... the best non-empty category (much better than "single-board computers with fatal flaws") in the FSF categorization: https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/single-board-computers
However, that categorization was not updated after the Libre Tea Computer Card was announced (it should be shipped at the end of this year, if everything goes on schedule): https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/support-the-libre-tea-computer-card-a-candidate-for-respects-your-freedom-certification
Interesting to see the BeagleBoard on that list as having "serious flaws". Their BeagleBone black was the initial install target for FreedomBone, a self-hosting project that seems to place a high value on software freedom:
https://freedombone.net/
I attempted to liberate the CHIP (which is only $9) a while back. I got stuck due to my lack of knowledge of compiling a kernel, but maybe you can get further with that than I did. You’ll need
- the CHIP
https://nextthing.co/pages/chip
- a USB WiFi adapter
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/penguin-wireless-n-usb-adapter-gnu-linux-tpe-n150usb
- a paperclip
(1) Replace the CHIP’s default OS with vanilla Debian. I can confirm that the Ubuntu instructions work for Trisquel 7, so you don’t need to use the evil Chrome thing they recommend.
https://docs.getchip.com/chip.html#setup-ubuntu-for-flashing
https://docs.getchip.com/chip.html#flash-chip-firmware
(2) Build open-ath9k-htc-firmware so that your USB WiFi adapter will work.
https://wiki.debian.org/ath9k_htc/open_firmware
(3) Replace NextThingCo’s kernel. I was able to deblob it using FSFLA’s linux-libre scripts
https://notabug.org/chaosmonk/CHIP-linux-libre
but I could not figure out how to compile it for armhf and get it working on the CHIP. If you can manage that, all you’ll need to do next is
(4) remove the non-free WiFi firmware, GPU firmware, and kernel via $ sudo apt-get remove chip-mali-modules-4.4.13-ntc-mlc chip-mali-userspace rtl8723bs-bt rtl8723bs-bt-mp-driver-common rtl8723bs-bt-mp-driver-modules-4.4.13-ntc-mlc rtl8723bs-mp-driver-modules-4.4.13-ntc-mlc linux-image-4.4.13-ntc-mlc The other packages from NTC’s repository that are installed by default are all GPL or another libre license. I didn’t investigate the ones that aren’t installed by default.
the libre tea computer card the shipping will cost me more than the unit also C.H.I.P. I 've seen sellers of Orange Pi, Banana Pi and Odroid C1 in my country and can you recommend them or any efforts on liberating them?
somebody was searching for the full schematics of Pi3 and the Pi don't want to share it. external link: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=194559&p=1229854&hilit=full+schematic#p1229854
Thanks for sharing, now I know how bad are the people who sell that blobbed crap. They only care about sales and money, not about user or software freedom.