I might travel soon. When I do, I might want to have my nexdock/lapdock. But I also like my Librem 14.
Since the Librem 14 is very free with RYF type of technology, is there a way to pack less items by using the Librem 14 as a lapdock itself? I know remote software and VNC and such exist, but that’s not so much what I’m referring to. I’m wondering if there’s any way to convince the software to operate on HDMI in reverse. For example if I crack open the lapdock and image whatever type of minimal software or firmware system it runs, would it be possible to burn that to a flash drive and boot that on the Librem 14?
Then I could get fast good hardware level dock performance (not VNC / network) but not be required to pacj a second laptop sized item.
99% chance of “no”. For a start the Librem 14 is an x86_64 CPU and so the lapdock would need a compatible CPU before its firmware even has a chance to boot on the Librem 14.
A more plausible boot option would be special purpose boot firmware for the Librem 14, booted from a flash drive, that makes it operate the way you want it to.
A hypothetical answer would be:
a new Purism box like the Librem Mini but battery powered and supporting video output via USB-C, including in pre-boot environments, and providing much more grunt than the Librem 5 i.e. grunt on a par with your Librem 14, and
your existing Librem 5, and
your existing lapdock
Then you would leave your Librem 14 behind and you could use either the Librem 5 with the lapdock or the, let’s call it the Mini, with the lapdock, but not both simultaneously. You may choose to use the Librem 5 when you don’t need a heap of grunt and to use the Mini when you do need substantially more grunt.
And I guess you will want some kind of WiFi capability in the Mini - to act either as a Wireless Access Point or at least to participate in ad hoc mode WiFi - so that the Mini will be the file server in this little setup.