Yes, with 128GB RAM, I guess one could even ignore that it is soldered (and hence "unrepairable"), but if it can't run Linux or *BSD it is a definite no go. We definitely don't need two closed hardware platform duopoly (Apple and Microsoft), as together they will dominate and kill the "open" platforms. But I am pessimistic here as everything seems headed towards that eventuality. We should never have accepted smartphones as closed platforms.
reply> Yes, with 128GB RAM, I guess one could even ignore that it is soldered
replyUnless that RAM fails in some way or another, then you have to replace the whole motherboard because of this.
It depends - soldered RAM (LPDDR) on iPads and soldered SSD on Intel Mac Minis can be repaired by replacing the chip. (But obviously it requires skills and specialised tools). So you don't necessarily need to replace the whole board. But if it is some kind of "integrated" non-standard RAM, like Apple uses on its ARM series SoCs, it is near unrepairable. So yeah, one should think many times before buying a computer with soldered RAM. (On the positive side, I've never had to replace any RAM in any computers I've owned so far - the failure point has always been HDDs for me).
replyin case of macbooks even if something like usb port controller failed is most likely leads to board replacement as well so is high change that even if RAM is fine it could be useless because some $2 component failure
replymacbooks have modular ports.
replyhttps://www.ifixit.com/News/116152/macbook-neo-is-the-most-r...
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reply> But I am pessimistic here as everything seems headed towards that eventuality.
replyLots of companies buy average Dell and Lenovo laptops because they are repairable in-house.
That's good to know - but many of their models also have soldered RAM, which is disappointing.
reply> We should never have accepted smartphones as closed platforms.
replyI didn't. Sent from my Librem 5.
There is ARM SystemReady in a couple of flavours, one of which is UEFI: https://documentation-service.arm.com/static/68512137d12d1a1...
replyWhile I'm not exactly enthused about UEFI I prefer this to android's fork-the-kernel-tree-and-abandon model for your pocket-SBC. The last device I used with this booted fedora using arm UEFI no issue, several years ago.
I don't see x86 going away for a long while if at all - too much software is built for it so the inertia is massive.
> I can recall the horror on reading articles how Raspberry Pi boot was working
The bootloader boot/process however is not related to driver support.
replyNot that I know what's nightmarish about it in the Pi.
The Pi is really a GPU with a CPU added on so the whole system needs to be brought up by the (binary blobs for running the) GPU. Hopefully not the case in these more PC-like systems...
replyHuh? Never got deep into it, but always thought it was some kind of arm cpu with underpowered integrated gpu or similar.
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