this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2024
91 points (89.6% liked)
Linux
48051 readers
802 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Some people are trying (RISC-V for instance) but as others pointed out it's really really hard, especially if you want to make the whole computer free and open source.
First you need an architecture for pretty much all components if you want it to be truly free (how the CPU, ram, motherboard, etc. work, on paper).
Then you need to manufacture these components, and making a modern CPU is insanely complex, even more so when you have a brand new architecture.
Then you need software (firmware, drivers, etc.), and again, on a new architecture, stuff will work differently than it does on existing stuff. So people need to learn how to work on your platform to make software. And obviously you need to make it available to people by selling it somehow.
It's technically doable but the investment (both monetary and humanly) would be massive and not really something anyone can start on their own as a hobby.
This bird's-eye view of the process really sells it short. "making a modern CPU is insanely complex" doesn't even scratch the surface of chip fab.
I mean, some guy did make his own lithography setup in his garage, and last we heard he had managed to fit 1,200 transistors on the same chip. This is just a few transistors shy of the 6,000,000,000 transistors in Intel's Rocket Lake die.
So if you want your PC to do much beyond blink an LED, you need an industrial photolithography machine. And of course, that entails a clean room, specialized HVAC and sanitation equipment (Intel's clean rooms have less tolerance for contaminants than hospital clean rooms). Then it's only a matter of getting the rest of the chip fabrication machines (because the process requires more precision than a human hand). And materials that have extremely specific proportions and purities.
And so it only costs a few hundred million dollars to just make a cpu. And even that was still just glossing over some of the most ridiculous, precise, specialized and esoteric marvels of science and engineering humanity has ever come up with.
Now it's just a matter of just making all the other parts.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
make his own lithography setup in his garage
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.