Slashdot Mirror
Librem: a Laptop Custom-Made For Free/Libre Software
Bunnie Huang's Novena laptop re-invents the laptop with open source (and Free software) in mind, but the hackability that it's built for requires a fair amount of tolerance on a user's part for funky design and visible guts. New submitter dopeghost writes with word of the nearly-funded (via Crowd Supply) Librem laptop, a different kind of Free-software machine using components "specifically selected so that no binary blobs are needed in the Linux kernel that ships with the laptop." Made from high quality components and featuring a MacBook-like design including a choice of HiDPI screen, the Librem might just be the first laptop to ship with a modern Intel CPU that is not locked down to require proprietary firmware.
Richard M. Stallman, president of the FSF, said, "Getting rid of the signature checking is an important step. While it doesn't give us free code for the firmware, it means that users will really have control of the firmware once we get free code for it." Unlike some crowdfunding projects, this one is far from pie-in-the-sky, relying mostly on off-the-shelf components, with a planned shipping date in Spring of this year: "Purism is manufacturing the motherboard, and screen printing the keyboard. Purism is sourcing the case, daughter cards, memory, drives, battery, camera, and screen."
Richard M. Stallman, president of the FSF, said, "Getting rid of the signature checking is an important step. While it doesn't give us free code for the firmware, it means that users will really have control of the firmware once we get free code for it." Unlike some crowdfunding projects, this one is far from pie-in-the-sky, relying mostly on off-the-shelf components, with a planned shipping date in Spring of this year: "Purism is manufacturing the motherboard, and screen printing the keyboard. Purism is sourcing the case, daughter cards, memory, drives, battery, camera, and screen."
This is based on a 4 Core (8 Threads) 3.4GHz Intel i7-4770HQ. So has Intel released the HDL model of that CPU for these Librem guys, in case they wish to change anything inside it? B'cos they make big claims about the kernel, OS, software, freedom and privacy, so it would be interesting to see if they go all the way. Heck, they should start it right from the bottom - make a GPLv3 based CPU (whose HDL models are all publicly available). It would probably have to be a VLIW CPU or something, in order to force the source code to be always available. Not an x86 or an ARM.
15.6" display in either 1920x1080 or 3840x2160
4 Core (8 Threads) 3.4GHz Intel i7-4770HQ
Intel Iris Pro Graphics 5200
375 x 244 x 22mm 2.0Kg
14 x 9.6 x 0.86" 4.4lbs
4GB Mem (up to 32GB)
500GB HD (up to 1TB HD or 1TB SSD)
CD/DVD ROM Drive (or extra drive bay)
48 Wh lithium polymer battery
65W power adapter
Up to 8 hours usage
Three USB 3.0 ports
One HDMI port
One Pop-Down RJ45 Network port (r8169)
802.11n WiFi (ath9k)
720p camera
HD Audio
Mini-TOSLINK optical fiber connector
Full-size keyboard in a variety of languages
Aluminum enclosure body
SDXC card slot
Purism GNU/Linux 64-bit Operating System (Trisquel based)
375mm x 244mm x 22mm (14" x 9.6" x 0.86")
2.0kg (4.4lbs)
SDXC card slot
How will that work? The SDXC spec requires the use of ExFAT operating system, which is patented software. Or will these laptops not be available in Slashdot's home country?
If they were going for free wouldn't DisplyPort have been a better option? I mean HDMI is at its roots video DRM. With DisplyPort you can opt to output to almost every modern video connection available including HDMI.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
In theory, you can use the Linux extended file system (Ext2-4) on removable media. But it shares one drawback with NTFS: user IDs generally don't match from one machine to another. So when you mount a file system on another machine, you won't have privileges to read or write files. FAT, by contrast, doesn't store owner or group IDs, instead assuming that all files belong to the user who mounted the file system. UDF supports the same feature, reserving UID -1 to mean "bearer" in this sense. UDF works on SDXC cards, but I was under the impression that any licensed SDXC writer had to support exFAT.
Before I get modded to oblivion... From TFA: In addition to enabling as above the development of free BIOS firmware, we are also working with Intel to allow us to scrub, release, and maintain the source for the FSP, but havenÃ(TM)t finalized that yet. We are devoted to freeing this binary. You can read here about the current state of our efforts to free the BIOS. (http://puri.sm/posts/bios-freedom-status/) The point I was trying to make is that UNTIL every layer of the operational stack really is Free & Open Source, the product as a whole isn't REALLY libre.
Some key specs on this thing:
3.4GHz Intel i7-4770HQ
Intel Iris Pro Graphics 5200
375 x 244 x 22mm 2.0Kg
14 x 9.6 x 0.86" 4.4lbs
48 Wh lithium polymer battery
Up to 8 hours usage
That battery life is a pipe dream. The Macbook Pro 15 (which is much better optimized for battery life than Windows) w/o discrete graphics gets 8 hours under light use on the same CPU using a 95 Wh battery. This thing is more likely to get 4 hours best case, probably closer to 2-3 hours since most open source software won't be optimized for power savings on this exact hardware. (Yes I've tested this, when I put together my NAS/VM server. I plugged it into a Kill-a-Watt and measured power draw from a variety of OSes. Windows came in best at 30 Watts idle. The best default install of a Linux distro was 35 Watts idle. The worst 55 Watts idle. All were right around 105 Watts under load.)
Most of the Windows laptops with an quad core i7 (without Iris Pro graphics) managing 4 hours under light use have a 60+ Wh battery. The two with 52/54 Wh batteries (Lenovo Y50, MSI GS60) come in at 3-4 hours battery life in reviews. An 8 hour battery life in this thing is going to be attainable only in the useless "I leave the laptop sitting there powered on, but doing nothing" case (where BTW the MBP 15 hits 14 hours due to its gargantuan battery, and the 60+ Wh Windows laptops manage about 8 hours).
Which brings us to the weight. Given the short battery life, why not increase the weight to put in a bigger battery? Obviously they're trying to match the Macbook Pro 15. But if you can't match it, sacrificing battery size to keep the weight low is probably the worst compromise you can make. As it is, this thing is going to be an super-light (for a 15" notebook) ultra-portable laptop that has to sit on the desk plugged into AC power most of the time. People who buy ultra-portable laptops buy them so they can take it with them and use it away from the desk and power outlet. People who don't mind short battery life don't mind it because their laptop usually sits on a desk plugged into AC power, and thus weight doesn't matter as much. Pick one or the other.
This is what we are working on now. http://openlunchbox.com/
Standard modules that anyone can make and cases printed on demand.
Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur