Basically I want to have a computer to experiment with that is 100% free and open source and that doesn't break the bank. My current idea is to use a RISCV board like the mango pi and use FreeBSD on it. I only use terminal applications expect for the browser so I'm not too worried about performance. But also I have never done anything like this before, this is really just to mess around and learn. But I'm looking for some advice what are the best RISCV boards and is it even worth it? Plus is it even possible to build a 100% free and open source computer with a RISCV board? I am currently doing research into this and this is part of my research lol, thank you.

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[–] pancake@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Theoretically current RISCV boards are not fully open since the processor itself is not. That might or might not matter to you, but you can always use an FPGA board. Anyway, hmu for anything, it's nice to help with projects as a community :)

[–] africavoid@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Thank you, and by the processor not being open source do you mean the design or the code running on it? sorry if this is a stupid question but I'm new to this just coming off a coreboot thinkpad lol

[–] pancake@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago

Basically, RISCV itself is open source, but it's just a specification. Actual processor designs implementing it are usually not open source.

[–] poVoq 6 points 2 years ago

https://riscv.org/blog/2023/03/top-ten-fallacies-about-risc-v/