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POWER8, OpenSparc, and OpenRISC are all still around. Linux kernel compiles for them all. You're only locked in if your personal requirements mandate the small
by daxorid 10y ago
POWER8, OpenSparc, and OpenRISC are all still around. Linux kernel compiles for them all.
You're only locked in if your personal requirements mandate the smallest lithography process and the highest clock speed.
- yellowapple 10y ago> You're only locked in if your personal requirements mandate the smallest lithography process and the highest clock speed. I'm pretty sure POWER still fulfills requirements for "highest clock speed", not x86/x64. That might be based on outdated information, though; I just recall POWER being the first to hit 5GHz CPU clock speeds even in spite of IBM's lithographic processes lagging behind Intel's.
- marssaxman 10y agoMy personal requirements mandate "a cheap sturdy laptop". Do such things exist for non-X64 architectures? I'm not sure where I would even start to look.
- nfriedly 10y agoThere were a few chromebooks that ran on ARM chips. Not sure about sturdy, but they were definitely cheap. (And, you can enable developer mode and then use whatever flavor of Linux you like.) Also, the Microsoft Surface RT tablets were ARM and fairly impressive from a hardware standpoint (sturdy, nice screens, etc.) You should be able to get a used one on Swappa fairly cheep. I know there was some credential leak recently, but I'm not sure if that's gone far enough to make it a useful development machine. (Also, it's a tablet with a kickstand and a detachable keyboard...)
- happycube 10y agoThere's still a tranche of early 2015 Rockchip Chromebooks, already with Coreboot on them - and you can even put Libreboot on at least some of them: https://libreboot.org/docs/install/c201.html https://libreboot.org/docs/install/c201.html
- wmf 10y agoYou would start to look at Novena, but that might not be quite the answer you're looking for.
- subway 10y agoNovena is great, but it certainly isn't cheap, isn't sturdy, and to be honest, unless you were lucky enough to snag a Senoko battery board, isn't a laptop. (I'm fortunate enough to own a few Novena boards).
- selectodude 10y agoMIPS and ARM laptops exist, or an old Thinkpad X60 with coreboot.
- marssaxman 10y agoI actually have an X60! But it's 32-bit x86, so these days it mostly collects dust while I use a Thinkpad X301. Where does one find a MIPS or ARM laptop? Who manufactures them?
- detaro 10y agoARM laptops exist in the form of various chromebooks. No clue if completely free firmware exists for any of them though.