Trisquel friendly hardware to keep an eye out for during upcoming sales?
Hey all!
North America is about to being it's annual "holiday sales" season, which can sometimes be meaningless marketing and sometimes can actually result in decent savings on hardware. I have attempted to install Trisquel on all my current laptop hardware only to find each has some component or other which requires binary blobs or closed source drivers, and which can't be easily modified, so I'm on the lookout for a laptop (new or used) that I can modify or configure so that all the major components work (mostly graphics and wifi) without external hardware.
I know in the past I used to be able to find compatibility recommendations but I can't seem to locate it again. Are there any references out there for people like me so I can put together a shopping list? I keep running into recommendations of the framework but I've always used modified corporate return ewaste rather than multithousand dollar hardware, so I'm wondering what else is a common platform these days.
I'm assuming there is a doc I'm missing that's right under my nose somewhere?
Thank you
-Jackalope
(Previously I used a T60 and a T420 with a firmware flash and swapped wifi card well past their sell-by dates, but I'd really like something slightly more modern and able to support 16gb of RAM. If I could get a T60 with more ram I'd likely have never updated. I miss my 4:3 ratio square. :( )
Posting about MNT Reform here. I don't know if this can be an option. I believe the source of the laptop is freely distributed; meaning, I understand that one could make their own using MNT Research's documentation[1][2], however, I can't tell whether the laptop can run freely. From the founder of the company behind the production of MNT Reform, I read:
> The first thing I wanted to make sure was the possibility of running mainline Linux on the machine, without using any proprietary binary blobs or drivers — while still being able to use basic GPU acceleration.[3]
However, on a blog, I read:
> Almost all of the firmware, hardware and software on this laptop is free and open source. Saved for a bit of non-ARM firmware at the start of boot, there are no binary blobs in use.[4]
[1] https://mntre.com/docs-all.html
[2] also, from the founder: "with the 3D files, you will be able to print chassis parts in any color or modified shape you want."[3], and I've heard him saying that someone did, but I don't know if there is info about this on the web.
[3] https://interfacecritique.net/journal/volume-1/hartmann-mnt-reform/
[4] https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2020/01/mnt-reform-open-source-laptop
Follow up about MNT Reform:
- https://trisquel.info/en/forum/imx8m-comments
- https://trisquel.info/en/forum/how-free-mnt-reform-version-2
These were posted 6 and 4 years ago, respectively --- they discuss how MNT Reform includes non-free blobs.
> they discuss how MNT Reform includes non-free blobs
This has been the case ever since, and still is. The efforts on the LS1028A module brought some hope, but it also comes with a blob:
"The eDP (embedded DisplayPort) controller still needs binary firmware"
https://mntre.com/media/reform_md/2022-07-25-ls1028a-status-update.html
It may still run fully free as a headless server, but a $2,000+ laptop is probably overpriced for such a use case.
MNT Reform is only libre with LS1028A and ath9k wifi card.
Other than that? No...