Raspberry Pi 400 with Trisquel
Hello Free Software Users,
I have been using a x200 since before Corona, but recently it got water damage, and a new librebooted one is too expensive for me. I was thinking of getting a Raspberry Pi 400 Keyboard All-in-One for a digital nomad lifestyle. I'm so used to Trisquel that I want to keep using it, but I know the wifi might be a problem... is there any way to install the non-free drivers? Or are Raspberry Pi's great enough to be fully free?
P.S
Can I also use tails with the Raspberry Pi 400?
I know this is unrelated to Trisquel but maybe someone knows.
Thanks!
Unfortunately, the boot firmware for Raspberry Pis are non-free so Raspberry PIs shouldn't be considered fully free at the moment. FSDG distros doesn't support RPIs because they would have to distribute the non-free boot firmware.
However, there is a work in progress free boot firmware for RPIs called librerpi[1] and it seems to kind of work, but I have never successfully booted Linux kernel from it, let alone trisquel.
Anyway, if you want a freedom friendly computer, you might want to look at something else like OLinuXino A20[2]. Those seem to run free software well, even boot firmware should be free, but I don't have those SBCs from Olimex so I don't have any experience of using and I can't really say much about it.
[1]: https://librerpi.github.io/
[2]: https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A20/A20-OLinuXino-LIME2/open-source-hardware
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> you might want to look at something else like OLinuXino A20
I have not managed to successfully install Trisquel on it. I could try with Parabola but it is much less powerful than an x200, e.g. looking at Trisquel web site with a web browser able to show it properly is painfully slow.
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> a new librebooted [x200] is too expensive for me
A cheaper option might be to get one through sites to sell used things, like ebay or others.
According to https://censored.libreboot.org/docs/hardware/, there are also Dell latitude laptops that are similar to the x200 in hardware and can be librebooted (I mean, without the need for adding anything non-free, unlike what is now the case on many machines listed as supported on the libreboot.org site) purely by software, so it is probably easier to do than for most alternatives.
Perhaps one of these laptops could be a solution, but be careful to read all the details to get a suitable one.
I am not aware of any reasonably cheap and easy alternative unfortunately.
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Dell Latitude E6400:
I ordered one for 52 EUR incl. shipping last week. I installed a better hard drive that I already had and installed trisquel and libreboot. The installation worked very well, I needed a little bit more time than 5 minutes but in the end i had success and now I am very happy with it.
Unfortunately the RPI uses a Microsoft RTOS, not a GNU one.
Can you elaborate?
https://github.com/azure-rtos/threadx/blob/master/LICENSE.txt
The license is non-free, a free firmware would need different RTOS, I suggest one with strong copyleft. But there are many free RTOSes.