Mini-computer
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I am looking for a mini-computer that can run an FSDG-compliant distro or Debian. I want to connect a 4K screen, a mouse, a keyboard and 1 Gbit/s ethernet. I want a mini computer because a laptop screen is too small and, with a screen on the desk, there is not enough space for a laptop in addition, and no space for a tower nearby.
I don't think anything like that can exist with Libreboot or a blobless Coreboot unfortunately. I saw things like librem mini and nitroPC that use coreboot and disable the Intel ME, I guess they still have the Intel FSP (which is not nice). Any suggestion is welcome.
You can screw a basket or small wire cage on the side or the back of the desk and put a ThinkPad in it. That's about all I can think of in terms of a libreboot or coreboot small form factor. Go into the power settings on Trisquel and set it so the laptop does not hybernate or turn off when you close the lid. I usually set my laptops so they stay running when the lids are closed. Should work fine, and give you the space you need.
Have you considered ARM SBCs? Most of those supported by FreedomBox[1] should be just as free as those librebooted devices (or more).
And here[2] is my forum post about RockPro64
[1] https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Hardware
[2] https://trisquel.info/en/forum/are-raspberry-pies-free#comment-164721
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Yes, I have read your post, thanks. I have the "Pioneer" working (using ejabberd, radicale and quassel) and I had ordered with it a model of same board with HDD and a board with eMMC.
But I have being struggling with them. I used Parabola with the board with the HDD, but devices like the HDD or an external card reader with an SD card were disappearing and re-appearing during operation. I wanted to try on the board with eMMC but I failed to make a booting Parabola installation on it.
I just tried these last days to install Debian, the install worked (luckily, I managed to run the instructions to compile U-boot with a modified configuration to make ethernet work with my board revision). I played about 30 minutes with LXDE, even doing nothing the CPU is quite loaded. It suddenly froze (mouse LED went off). I did not investigate yet.
I also just installed Debian today on the board with eMMC, this time I tried to just put xorg and fvwm. I haven't used this kind of setup for a while, I don't know whether having to invoke xrefresh to wipe traces of windows moved is due to this board or not. I'll try spending a bit more time on it later.
I suppose the RockPro64 is more powerful so indeed, it could be a better option.
> I suppose the RockPro64 is more powerful so indeed, it could be a better option.
I'm glad you wrote this. It would be rude for anyone else to say "you should buy board x" after you already purchased 1 device.
The last time I tried using Parabola ARM, many packages were outdated there. Also, as you've already experienced,it is pretty unstable. Even if storage devices worked properly, you'd soon face issues with incompatible icu library versions..
Perhaps you could try the new Trisquel ARM? I don't mean it to be more lightweight than Debian with fvwm - it certainly isn't. However, having Trisquel on such board would be cool just for the sake of it! (the only reason I am not yet installing Trisquel on my RockPro is because the Devuan system I've been using so far is pretty stable (is it already 1 month since last reboot?) and I can't spend time on such experiments for mere fun).
Anyway, good luck with your Olimex boards
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> The last time I tried using Parabola ARM, many packages were outdated there.
I noticed that. I also recently installed Parabola on a T400, even on x86 I am not impressed by browser availability. Not to mention the lack of a seafile client, which is an essential feature for me.
> Perhaps you could try the new Trisquel ARM?
This is on the back of my mind.
I assume I would have to do like for Parabola on ARM, setup partitions, mount them, put the tarball contents, chroot, generate fstab, set hostname, generate locales, set keymap and timezone, configure apt if it not already done, install kernel, generate ramdisk (if that is not done by apt when installing the kernel). What I am not sure about though is U-boot: is it enough to dd U-boot to the proper location on the SD card or do I need to also put some files in /boot (like DTB, or whatever of these things that I have nearly zero clue about)?
> I assume I would have to do like for Parabola on ARM, setup partitions, mount them, put the tarball contents, chroot, generate fstab, set hostname, generate locales, set keymap and timezone, configure apt if it not already done, install kernel, generate ramdisk (if that is not done by apt when installing the kernel).
Since there doesn't seem to be any ARM tarball to download[1], you might need to resort to using debootstrap with chroot (likely with the help of QEMU but I suppose you're already familiar with that). It shouldn't be much harder, though.
I also see the Ubiquity installer's armhf package present in Nabia[2]. Perhaps you could first create an ARM chroot, apt-get Ubiquity in it and then use that to install Trisquel on the storage device of your choice? What would be left is getting U-boot to start that up.
> What I am not sure about though is U-boot: is it enough to dd U-boot to the proper location on the SD card or do I need to also put some files in /boot (like DTB, or whatever of these things that I have nearly zero clue about)?
Idk either. My board is very different (I installed U-boot on ROM chip there and I don't even need an SD card to boot now) and I am using U-boot + GRUB. In this setup besides placing FDT files in a specific place on the EFI partition I am also manually re-generating the GRUB ELF binary every time I need to have grub.cfg updated.
Nevertheless, my solutions here are far from the best and you should be able to come up with something more convenient.
[1] https://trisquel.info/en/download
[2] https://packages.trisquel.org/nabia-updates/ubiquity
> Since there doesn't seem to be any ARM tarball to download
There is. See https://cdimage.trisquel.info/trisquel-images/
It's not clear to me why it's not listed on the download page though.
> It's not clear to me why it's not listed on the download page though.
The release announcement says:
"...today's publication of a pre-installed development image will allow the community to start experimenting and bring support to ARM devices."
Development images may possibly be considered a bit too much on the raw side to be listed as an option on the main download page, although it would arguably boost awareness to do so.
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> Since there doesn't seem to be any ARM tarball to download
There seems to be in https://cdbuilds.trisquel.org
> you might need to resort to using debootstrap with chroot (likely with the help of QEMU but I suppose you're already familiar with that)
I have never used debootstrap or qemu directly. I have only used pacstrap following the Parabola instructions for installing things for Parabola on ARM from something else than ARM and in the end I did not get something bootable. That was a while ago, I'll retry at some point.
> I installed U-boot on ROM chip there and I don't even need an SD card to boot now...
Supposing I solved all other problems, I may consider that, but I only target booting from an SD card now.
> There seems to be in https://cdbuilds.trisquel.org
It would be better to use the released location of https://cdimage.trisquel.info/trisquel-images/
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