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posted by martyb on Wednesday January 22 2020, @12:38AM   Printer-friendly
from the you-can-take-it-with-you dept.

Hackaday:

How better to work on Open Source projects than to use a Libre computing device? But that's a hard goal to accomplish. If you're using a desktop computer, Libre software is easily achievable, though keeping your entire software stack free of closed source binary blobs might require a little extra work. But if you want a laptop, your options are few indeed. Lucky for us, there may be another device in the mix soon, because [Lukas Hartmann] has just about finalized the MNT Reform.

Since we started eagerly watching the Reform a couple years ago the hardware world has kept turning, and the Reform has improved accordingly. The i.MX6 series CPU is looking a little peaky now that it's approaching end of life, and the device has switched to a considerably more capable – but no less free – i.MX8M paired with 4 GB of DDR4 on a SODIMM-shaped System-On-Module. This particular SOM is notable because the manufacturer freely provides the module schematics, making it easy to upgrade or replace in the future. The screen has been bumped up to a 12.5″ 1080p panel and steps have been taken to make sure it can be driven without blobs in the graphics pipeline.

What has Soylentils' experience with open hardware been?


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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Subsentient on Wednesday January 22 2020, @02:25AM (5 children)

    by Subsentient (1111) on Wednesday January 22 2020, @02:25AM (#946631) Homepage Journal

    I never cared that much about proprietary firmware, as long as I can boot an arbitrary OS and my kernel can insert its throbbing cock into the BIOS' address space.
    That said, there's far, FAR too much hardware that doesn't meet this basic requirement. Looking at you, smartphones....

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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 22 2020, @05:41AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 22 2020, @05:41AM (#946721)

    Even your throbbing open source cock can't get rid of Intel's Management Engine bare metal spyware.

    • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 22 2020, @05:47AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 22 2020, @05:47AM (#946723)

      Some people enjoy the bondage and open back door.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 23 2020, @02:37AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 23 2020, @02:37AM (#947179)

        This is like saying people in prison must endure anal penetration because they "asked for it" by committing a crime.
        No user asks to be backdoored by Intel just because they purchased an Intel chip.

    • (Score: 3, Touché) by hendrikboom on Friday January 24 2020, @08:22PM (1 child)

      by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 24 2020, @08:22PM (#948115) Homepage Journal

      No, but it appears to be possible to *disable* Intel's management engine. It's still there to initialize the hardware, but after that all its "management features" are shut down.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by hendrikboom on Monday January 27 2020, @03:27AM

        by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 27 2020, @03:27AM (#949155) Homepage Journal

        And disabling the management engine is what Purism does with the laptops it sells.

        Rumour has it that the technique for doing so was found somewhere in Intel's database of published user hacks, and had been put there at the request of the NSA, which wasn't going to buy chips that could be hacked remotely.