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Purism Offers Free (as in Freedom) Laptops (Video)

Posted by Roblimo on from the free-at-last dept.

Purism uses its own OS, PureOS, which is a Debian derivative by way of Ubuntu and other members of the Debian-derivative family, but with no taint of proprietary code. Now imagine all the binaries stripped out of the Linux kernel, making it closer to the FSF ideal of a 100% free operating system than the Linux kernel in use almost everywhere else.

They're still using a proprietary BIOS, but have people working on a Free one. The main thing, though, is that Purism is working to give you all the privacy and freedom they can -- with more coming as they keep working to replace proprietary bits of the OS, BIOS, and hardware drivers with Free Software. Best of all, even if you don't need a new laptop right now, you can download PureOS and run it on any compatible hardware you already own.

38 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. Wow I'd love to check this out. by Narcocide · · Score: 1

    Flash video?? Too bad... am I wrong or does Slashdot really not support HTML5 video yet?

    1. Re:Wow I'd love to check this out. by nullchar · · Score: 1

      It does not look difficult: http://diveintohtml5.info/vide...

  2. Yet another Wi-Fi-won't-work distro by xenoc_1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Don't we already have Trisquel for those who want a "free as in freedom, free as in free from working" distro?

    I know, buy a different laptop. Buy an otherwise totally unnecessary and port-wasting, marginal-power-use-increasing, external adaptor with politically correct firmware, because, freedom.

    Sticking with politically incorrect, it-just-works, Linux Mint.

    Gnu can bite me.

    1. Re:Yet another Wi-Fi-won't-work distro by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The wireless card in the laptop is Atheros. The entire lower mac is in hardware in this card, so binary blobs are not needed. Wifi should work fine. Obviously the card can DMA over PCIe to the main memory so it could still compromise the machine.

    2. Re: Yet another Wi-Fi-won't-work distro by xenoc_1 · · Score: 1

      I'm referring to the distro rather than the brand of machine. Alert mentions both. I question why yet another distro is needed when there already are "free as in freedom" ones that are better known and also of the Debian-via-Ubuntu base.

      Given they have this new PureOS distro, I would expect it'll be used on other magic, because freedom. With the usual freedom from Wi-Fi results if the card needs proprietary drivers. We already have enough of those politically correct distros.

    3. Re:Yet another Wi-Fi-won't-work distro by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      This is wrong. All wrong. It's the other way around. The laptops that are depending on the proprietary bits are problematic. The companies behind the drivers eventually discontinue these pieces and you lose support. Often they don't have proper support to begin with because they can't interoperate properly with the mainline kernel. Compare that to Trisquel which makes it abundantly clear what components are likely to be problematic. While that doesn't in and of itself mean there can't be problems it's a good step toward a more stable better supported system.

      I don't use an FSF endorsed distribution, but I do always by free as in freedom software friendly hardware. It's the only way to go if you care about stability, bug fixes, proper support, etc.

    4. Re:Yet another Wi-Fi-won't-work distro by tlhIngan · · Score: 2

      The wireless card in the laptop is Atheros. The entire lower mac is in hardware in this card, so binary blobs are not needed. Wifi should work fine. Obviously the card can DMA over PCIe to the main memory so it could still compromise the machine.

      Which really makes the whole "freedom" thing kind of a cheat.

      I mean, if I stick RAM on my hardware, and have the driver load that RAM with firmware, it's seen as "non-free" because there's this binary blob on there.

      Yet, if I stick some flash on it, pre-load that at the factory with the same binary blob, it's see as "free" because the driver is open and doesn't have to load a binary blob.

      I can keep the driver and everything else the same - one is seen as "non-free" because the driver has to load a binary blob into hardware, and the other is seen as "free" because it doesn't.

    5. Re:Yet another Wi-Fi-won't-work distro by KGIII · · Score: 1

      I like Mint. It is my favorite current distro. I call it Linux for Retards because, well, it is. You can just install and be done with it on every single configuration I have tried. There is something to be said for that. I also like CentOS lately, but that is a bit bloated.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  3. Re:free as in beer? by Narcocide · · Score: 3, Informative

    "Free" as in speech.

  4. What about free as in free from hardware? by dreamchaser · · Score: 1

    Not even a 'free' BIOS can prevent compromised microcode.

  5. Re:free as in beer? by QRDeNameland · · Score: 1

    I just checked the website, and at $1,849 for a middling spec laptop, it must be true that "freedom isn't free."

    --
    Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
  6. More sloppy than normal? by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 1

    So besides the mild irony of a Flash Video (and I'm sure Flash is not allowed on PureOS) the URL for the OS has both a typo AND a missing period. It's https://puri.sm/pureos/

    And people have shown over and over that Free as in Speech takes a back seat to actually getting things done. I'm glad for the people releasing this, I hope they have fun, but it will be a small circle of people patting each other on the back as everyone else goes to mobile.

  7. Re:Bad URL by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 1

    https://puri.sm/pureos/

    Though actually not a lot there.

  8. Re:free as in beer? by Stormwatch · · Score: 1

    You must be new around here. Free as in the four freedoms.

    --
    Circumcision is child abuse.
  9. Stop promoting this fraudster! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Todd, the founder of Purism, had defrauded hundreds of people out of hard earned money. He's pulled numerous scams and is STILL bilking people who don't know better out of money. Despite the fact that numerous respectable developers and other leaders in the Linux and free software community pointing this out the message hasn't gotten through. He's a fraud! His claims are nothing more than nonsensical and contradictory. He's a back-peddling thief.

    Todd is what you would call a confidence king. This is where someone convinces you there doing something good and takes your money without delivering on there promises. Purism does not have the Free Software Foundation's endorsement, nor can he get it. There are critical proprietary pieces that can't be freed in modern Intel/AMD computers. Intel is licensing pieces from a third party which it does not have the rights to free.

    The 500 or so computers Todd has arranged to have manufactured is nowhere near enough to get Intel to cooperate. A sales rep does not have the authority to release code and this is the extent of Todds talks with Intel. Google with its millions of Chromebooks has been unable to get this code released. The Coreboot developers have stated this much numerous times:

    http://blogs.coreboot.org/blog/2015/02/23/the-truth-about-purism-why-librem-is-not-the-same-as-libre/

    Despite the claims Todd did not ship the Librem 15 with CoreBoot (which itself isn't free) and if he had it would not have made the laptop any more free as it would merely have been a payload. The reality is the Librem 15 shipped with a stock proprietary AMI BIOS. If it were even possible to free the BIOS Todd would have needed to use LibreBoot. Not CoreBoot.

    He's badmouthing other companies who actually have pushed things forward, specifically ThinkPenguin, Gluglug, and others who have worked with companies to free chipsets, free coreboot, actually begin to design laptops, and not just building off stock reference designs. These companies have actual products out the door which are Respect Your Freedom certified. Something that Todds laptop will never be. It was originally so badly designed that he was including chipsets that only had proprietary graphics driver support. The NVIDIA graphics chip he was including had zero (not even rudimentary) support from the free nouveau driver, not even had he gone with the prior version of the chip!

    Here are some of the stories from leading coreboot developers and other free software activists:

    Purism Librem Laptops Remain Blobbed Up, Less Than Interesting
    http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Purism-Librem-Still-Blobbed

    Libreboot exposes the purism librem as fraud
    http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3ew6pz/libreboot_exposes_the_purism_librem_as_fraud/

    The truth about Purism: Why Librem is not the same as libre
    http://blogs.coreboot.org/blog/2015/02/23/the-truth-about-purism-why-librem-is-not-the-same-as-libre/

    1. Re:Stop promoting this fraudster! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Ah, that explain why they would claim a 32 GB max memory support on a chip (i7-5557U) which only supports 16 GB.
      Oh well.

    2. Re:Stop promoting this fraudster! by Antity-H · · Score: 1

      I dont care all that much about the claims of the laptop being fully "libre" and I understand that a compromised microcode or FSP can compromise the entire PC, I do believe though that the less binary and closed components their are, the less attack vectors are available.
      It may not be perfect but its better than every thing else which is available and it is a step in the right direction. Showing that some buyers DO care about such things demonstrates that a market exists for such machines even at a higher price.
      If this can bring us good laptops which are not riddled by malware from day1 as most windows laptop are today, I say go for it.

      Yes compromised microcode is still bad, puri.sm is supposedly working on a coreboot base for rev2 (they do acknowledge that rev1 shipped with an AMD Bios here : https://puri.sm/posts/librem-1...)
      And yes they are still talking about coreboot instead of libreboot and I haven't had time to read up on what they are and why I should care. They also say that they are working with Intel to free the remaining bits which is laudable at least.

      Regarding the memory, they have provided explanations regarding this exact point in their blog
      "We heard from a backer that Intelligent Memory can run 32GB even though the specification states 16GB! This was corroborated by both PCWorld and our direct contact at Intelligent Memory this morning. We are back to offering 32GB, and will not change the existing orders down to 16GB."
      See https://puri.sm/posts/32gb-is-... for a link to the pcworld bit

      I am monitoring the librem 15 news very closely because on paper this is the laptop I want to buy except I haven't :)
      All the reviews I have been able to find were done using prototypes, I have been unable to find any article on the production hardware for rev1, I have not seen anyone bragging that they had actually recieved their rev1 either. no pictures, no hands-on impressions etc no actual feedback on the build quality from non marketing sources.

      While I don't mind the price for a really good quality laptop, I am unwilling to put it for a machine from a vendor with 0 track record on build quality, delivery, support, etc with no obvious return policy if the laptop doens't meet my standards
      (a situation which is made even worse by my being european and puri.sm being an SF based startup which makes the chances of proper support / return pretty slim.)

    3. Re:Stop promoting this fraudster! by sasparillascott · · Score: 1

      Todd, the founder of Purism, had defrauded hundreds of people out of hard earned money. He's pulled numerous scams and is STILL bilking people who don't know better out of money.

      Seems like quite a personal rant you have there - which might be all true, but how would we know its not just a smear... Any supporting links about his numerous scams?

    4. Re:Stop promoting this fraudster! by BitZtream · · Score: 1

      He feeds idiots who think having an all 'libre' laptop is important. I'm not really seeing a problem with that. He's a poacher of fanboys who can't think critically.

      Both sides win in that deal. The fanboy get to rant on about their Stallman fetishes and Todd gets to part them of their money.

      The way I see it, its a match made in heaven, they deserve each other.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
  10. Not a very informed submission by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    There are a number of distros that eschew everything non-free. The FSF keeps a list: https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html. They also have a "Respects Your Freedom" certification (https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom), given to Gluglug (http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/), which uses Libreboot (http://libreboot.org/) to replace the proprietary BIOS.

  11. Re:free as in beer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well, of course it's true! Freedom costs a buck o'five.

  12. Re:I have one by mattventura · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Except for little, unimportant things like the BIOS, HDD/SSD firmware, and probably tons of other internal devices. They'd probably be much better off taking an existing laptop and replacing proprietary firmwares than putting out a completely new laptop with terrible value that isn't even free. Their biggest accomplishment isn't the freedom, it's that they managed to make Macs look cheap.

  13. Re:free as in beer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It's actually +$25 for it since you are forced to pay $25 for an empty drive bay. There isn't a no added cost option there. I am assuming that's their way of recouping the $25 credit you get from the Librem coupon.

  14. Re:free as in beer? by znrt · · Score: 1

    didn't you watch the comercial? it's *beautiful* freedom, you insensitive clod!

  15. Laptop for Ideologues by Crashmarik · · Score: 2

    Your views may differ but people that insist on ideological purity in the real world give me the heebeegeebees. They usually produce little aside from atrocities, and nearly 2k for a somewhat lowend laptop sure sounds like that.

    1. Re:Laptop for Ideologues by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Wrong. This laptop has a hardware switch that physically disable the microphone and webcam, and and a second hardware switch to physically disable wifi and bluetooth. That's huge, especially in a time when all webcams no longer have built-in lens covers. That alone makes this laptop better than anything on the market.

  16. Mac Envy by twistedcubic · · Score: 1

    Ahh, brushed aluminum laptops. Copying Macs is such a waste of tiem and effort. Almost everybody does this badly. I'm amazed that no one bothers to copy the older, popular Thinkpads, which are no longer available new.

    1. Re:Mac Envy by tylikcat · · Score: 1

      ...and the thinkpad keyboards. And the thinkpad clitmice, with the hard buttons (goodness, that last almost makes me want to use one of the more polite forms of the name...) I looked at this briefly the last time I went shopping, but lack of input options made it seem awfully unattractive for some of my 3d modelling work.

      (So I have two Thinkpads, a w-series for when I'm doing serious simulations and don't mind the weight, and a yoga12 for running around with.)

    2. Re:Mac Envy by jstuxx · · Score: 1

      Because technology is not progressing it is regressing and declining haven't you noticed?

  17. PureOS just a re-off of Trisquel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm sick of these bastards ripping us off. Rubén Rodríguez has spent significant amount of time over the years to produce a distribution for which he's gotten little to no credit for and Todd comes in, grabs all this publicity, and it's nothing more than a re-compile with slightly different logos. Just cut it out.

  18. Re:I have one by unixisc · · Score: 1

    Since it's Debian, one would presumably be able to install SteamOS on it?

  19. Re:free as in beer? by morgauxo · · Score: 1

    Freedom from porn. No proprietary codecs....

  20. Does it use systemd? by gweihir · · Score: 1

    I.e. the integrated backdoor and control system desired by the NSA and others?

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  21. Re:Free as in freedom? by gweihir · · Score: 1

    "Free as in freedom" mans you have to pay for it.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  22. Why? by morgauxo · · Score: 1

    It's been a while since I used Debian but I remember stock debian installs already pretty much fitting this description. You had to turn on the contrib and non-free apt sources to get anything proprietary. Has this changed?

  23. Purism Road to FSF RYF Endorsement and Beyond... by toddm2n · · Score: 1

    We are working hard to free the lower level, here is our roadmap: https://puri.sm/road-to-fsf-ry... Thanks for all the support so far! You can email me, and I will respond: todd@puri.sm Thanks!

  24. Re:Free PC YAY by KGIII · · Score: 1

    Yes. You should sign up again. It will work this time, for sure. Make sure to complete ALL the offers. *nods*

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  25. Re:free as in beer? by codeButcher · · Score: 1

    Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.

    Oh wait, it's in my sig.

    --
    Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.