Normally, you would see this screen that allows you to switch storage modes
And back when PCs were far more open, good old IDE was always an option too.
Ever since BIOS became EFI, and flash ROMs started getting much bigger, it seems they've not been adding functionality but removing it slowly. The excuse is often "security" (against the user), and "legacy" (the oldest interfaces are also the most widely understood and stable).
That said, I'd stay away from the "prebuilt" manufacturers like Dell, Lenovo, HP, etc. if you want configurability. They've always had far less options in their BIOS than equivalent offerings from "enthusiast" or "gamer" oriented companies, although in the laptop space it's more difficult to do that.
I still hope to some day see Postgres ported to run directly on a RAID controller. EBPF already exists running on NICs but we need more things of that sort. I suppose Synology has a bit of an analog of this in that their NASes can run docker images on their end which makes better use of their gigabit ethernet connection. But that’s basically a whole second computer.
The next thing or what has even gone on with Apple Silicon is going to be attempting to outperform SoCs and if you can't then you get pushed on having to make SoCs on chips. I think there will still be Raspberry Pi or other vendors that will have open SoCs and even Risc-V boards being integrated with Framework laptops but as time goes on we are still going to most likely going to be stuck with SoCs on devices because the memory or any other device is just closer to the rest of the Silicon.
RaspberryPi's SOC famously boots from it's GPU first, then it's CPU.
The GPU is a binary blob (not open source) thanks to Broadcom...
Broadcom... that same hardware mfgr that makes your Debian install so much extra fun... (well, if you care about networking and integrated controllers...)
Well yea, a pre-built with no regards for repairability will always end up more tighly packed than something that needs to fit in a standardized battery, etc. And in Framework's case, an entire GPU.
That's pretty much why phones never had a chance for this idea until very recently (and AFAIK, those recent examples are still not commercially available).
This used to be a thing- I remember my father excitedly configuring a made-to-order laptop from ZipZoomFly[0] back in the day. I think that the market wasn’t kind to them though, the ecosystem about replaceable laptop parts never matured to the point where it was competitive with the proprietary designs, and standards constantly changed because of the form factor’ constraints, so the dream of just replacing a single part never materialized.
Closest thing to that dream now is the framework laptop, which does have replaceable parts.
Resellers of Clevo barebones offer a fair bit of flexibility to spec the system to order. It's not full freedom to mix and match, but still quite flexible. The price is that it is far less sleek, bulkier and heavier than most other laptops.
What the parent poster was talking about was not the old hardware IDE interface, but the emulation of the IDE interface within the SATA controller, which exists for compatibility with very old operating systems which understand the old IDE interface but not the newer SATA interface. Since nearly all modern operating systems understand the SATA interface (AHCI) natively (that is, without having to install any extra drivers), that compatibility mode is not very relevant anymore.
And back when PCs were far more open, good old IDE was always an option too.
Ever since BIOS became EFI, and flash ROMs started getting much bigger, it seems they've not been adding functionality but removing it slowly. The excuse is often "security" (against the user), and "legacy" (the oldest interfaces are also the most widely understood and stable).
That said, I'd stay away from the "prebuilt" manufacturers like Dell, Lenovo, HP, etc. if you want configurability. They've always had far less options in their BIOS than equivalent offerings from "enthusiast" or "gamer" oriented companies, although in the laptop space it's more difficult to do that.