Many thanks for your answers.
* I forgot to say, they don’t want a notebook, they have a 19" screen (VGA
port only) which is okay for viewing their pictures. So they want a desktop
computer.
* I’m well aware that Wifi is nearly always full of nonfree blob but this
isn’t a problem because these friends don’t need Wifi. They dislike
cables but Wifi can be unreliable and slower than an ethernet connection.
Ethernet is good enough for them.
* I have an old camera so it makes 3Mb-heavy pictures. The new camera these
people are going to buy will make very heavy pictures, 20Mb (20million
pixels).
* Would an Allwinner A20 based config enough? I’ve long intended to
assemble a small box for myself from A20-OLinuXIno-LIME2
https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A20/A20-OLinuXIno-LIME2/open-source-hardware
but there’s no VGA output. I’ll have a closer look at
https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop (thanks for the link,
onpon4) — I don’t want a Nand card, by the way. And I’d miss a real
ethernet port.
I’d be very interested if they managed to make their board completely
opensource hardware, Allwinner not being totally free (guilty of some
violation of the GPL). Okay, I must read more on this, as the FAQ mentions
software only.
onpon4, do you still use your computer? What can you do with it?
It is "upgradable", well, only by throwing away the single board and buying
another one, if I understand right. You can’t even add RAM. Of course,
it’s better than getting rid of a whole big desktop computer.
Supertramp said: Make it an Intel GPU but not the skylake.
I read on this forum that Skylake chipsets contain some freedom-unfriendly or
even spying blob but are Haswell chipsets (Intel HB81, socket 1150) free from
such evil?
It’s interesting to see that present-day CPUs contain GPU as well. Such
centralisation is convenient (good-bye ADM/Nvidia headaches) but also means
that Intel takes control of two important components even in desktop
computers: CPU and GPU. It’s a bit like RaspberryPi with its nonfree
Broadcom chipset that controls both the boot and the GPU.
Another problem can be Gigabyte Motherboards with their extra bios (EFI)
features.
And finally, yes, there’s ebay, well, it’s a hotch-potch, you may find
hardware in good repair, it takes a long time to find out which vendor sells
the best component, and of course you first need to register on Ebay, bye-bye
privacy. But there’s not much choice other than ebay (I’ll try our
national second-hand website which may not require registration).
Another problem with older computer is soon going to arise: free Linux
drivers and firmware for AMD or Nvidia cards won’t be compatible with older
cards, probably after Debian Jessie (Linux 3.16 until 2020). (Trisquel runs
on a newer kernel). This is something I have to look into more closely.
And the web is getting heavier and heavier, unless you block CSS and scripts.
Cheers,
