Blobs and backdoors

[Adsgtn001]

Very limited knowledge... I found an octane among my dad's old crap. I was wondering what it could be used for. One possibility was as an anonymous web browser? I only thought of that because I know the libreboot community loves older Thinkpads since the older CPUs don't have binary blobs or exploitable backdoors. Hence my question... Since this machine is older and is designed in a completely different way from normal household PCs I thought maybe there's a chance it could be used in the aforementioned way.

 

[callahan]

Huge hurdles to that. Most importantly you'd have to port your own browser over, which is a huge task. You're also stuck either with an OS that hasn't gotten a security patch in ~20 years (Irix) or maybe Linux, which won't be more secure than it would on much more modern x86 hardware.

Practically, SGI hardware now is good for 1) looking at 2) playing around on and 3) converting electricity to heat. That, and historical value, is why this community exists.

 

[Adsgtn001]

I see... So mine is not even useful as a display piece as it's just a naked motherboard with no case, power supply, monitor, or keyboard