5 ms·

I just wish they would make something like this on newer hardware

by IceyEC 11y ago

nextos 11y ago
It might be possible with the new Rockchip ARM Chromebooks (more specifically Asus). It's been discussed in the Libreboot mailing list lately.
gioele 11y ago
Librem 13 and Librem 15v2 [1] are one blob away from being FSF-certifiable. And they are brand new hardware. [1] https://puri.sm/ https://puri.sm/
- listic 11y ago
  > one blob away I'll believe it when I'll see it. All we have is their word for it, and I really don't like the way they are promoting their product so far.
  - beeboop 11y ago
    It will literally never happen. Intel would never give this up.
- andrepd 11y ago
  They are also expensive as all shit.
  - belorn 11y ago
    Maybe they can subsidize it a bit by adding a bunch of malware. Root kits, spyware and adware are popular choices.
    - dogma1138 11y ago
      They are selling you a standard laptop, with standard hardware, commercial bios and firmware for a huge premium on price. The only difference is that it comes with Linux, but a Dell XPS Dev edition with Ubuntu for nearly half the price and you're set.
- garrettgrimsley 11y ago
  It isn't going to happen, at least not through the use of Libreboot [0], which is what the X200 in the parent article relies on for their firmware replacement. The X200 is one of the latest support ThinkPad models, as the newer ones also use Intel Management Extensions. Without replacing these binary blobs with free software you won't be able to get the FSF certification. [1] Or would it fall under the "secondary embedded processor" exception? >Will the Purism Librem laptops be supported? >Probably not. There are several privacy, security and freedom issues with these laptops, due to the Intel chipsets that they use. See #intel. There are signed proprietary blobs which cannot be replaced (e.g. Intel Management Engine and CPU microcode updates). It uses the proprietary Intel FSP blob for the entire hardware initialization, which Intel won't provide the source code for. The Video BIOS (initialization firmware for the graphics hardware) is also proprietary. >It will likely take many years to replace even one of these blobs, let alone all of them. Some of them (ME firmware and microcode) can't even be replaced, which immediately disqualifies these laptops from being added to libreboot. [0] http://libreboot.org/faq/#librem http://libreboot.org/faq/#librem [1] https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/criteria https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/criteria
  - ploxiln 11y ago
    Purism claims to have gotten access to intel CPUs specially fused to run unsigned Management Engine firmware, and it claims to have made progress on a minimal replacement for the ME firmware. The plan for the microcode is to just not ship any updates, either in the bios or the default distro. The other parts will indeed take a lot more time, but it isn't hopeless. https://puri.sm/posts/pioneering-cpu-efforts-to-liberate-laptop-hardware/ https://puri.sm/posts/pioneering-cpu-efforts-to-liberate-lap... https://puri.sm/posts/weekly-update-on-librem-production-2015-10-02/ https://puri.sm/posts/weekly-update-on-librem-production-201...
    - garrettgrimsley 11y ago
      Wow, I wonder how they pulled that off. It's certainly a good start, but since it will be shipping with non-Free (though replaceable) BIOS binaries it would still fall short of the Respects Your Freedom hardware certification requirements. I did some digging since I have little knowledge of the Purism project. The Purism project offers an estimate of one year for replacing the non-Free blobs in the firmware. The Libreboot FAQ says that it could take years to replace the Intel FSP or Video BIOS, much less both. Given that a Coreboot developer has expressed doubts [0, 1] about the bold claims the Purism project has made in the past I'm inclined to take the word of the folks working on Libreboot. If by the time, if ever, a truly Libre product ships from Purism will it be any less dated than the X200 we have now? [0] http://blogs.coreboot.org/blog/2015/08/09/the-truth-about-purism-behind-the-coreboot-scenes/ http://blogs.coreboot.org/blog/2015/08/09/the-truth-about-pu... [1] http://blogs.coreboot.org/blog/2015/02/23/the-truth-about-purism-why-librem-is-not-the-same-as-libre/ http://blogs.coreboot.org/blog/2015/02/23/the-truth-about-pu...
- jlgaddis 11y ago
  An i5 @ 2.2 GHz w/ 4 GB of RAM starting at $1649 or an i7 @ 3.0 GHz w/ 4 GB of RAM starting at $1849!? Wow, good luck selling those.
  - buffoon 11y ago
    Yep. I paid $170 (in UK money) for a 2.4GHz i5 520M X201 with 4Gb of RAM...
lucb1e 11y ago
For me, this is exactly what I've been waiting for. Every time there is a free software laptop (and it's not aimed at really poor people or at weighing only 20 grams) it's hugely expensive because of small scale with high end hardware. And usually it doesn't ship to the Netherlands either. This one, or at least a variant they link to, actually fixes all of this. Choosing the 240gb ssd option, the price is still quite reasonable (and SSDs are just fast, almost regardless of the rest of your setup).
lfam 11y ago
They claim they can't do it on any new Intel hardware because the hardware is fundamentally incompatible with the FSF's goals: http://libreboot.org/faq/#intel http://libreboot.org/faq/#intel
- hydrogen18 11y ago
  So find an ARM SoC vendor that will make hardware that is compatible with their goals?
  - yuhong 11y ago
    Yea, what is also fun is that you already are running nonfree microcode when you boot any x86 processor, making skipping microcode updates useless.
  - pgeorgi 11y ago
    The closest is Rockchip's RK3288 which is found on some Chromebooks. Its GPU still relies on blobs, which is their main argument against it, but since that code isn't signed (unlike the ME firmware) at least it _can_ be replaced. Somebody is working on "liberating" the firmware side of Asus Chromebook Flip (mostly work to make it useful for non-Chrome OS situations), and I guess volunteers are welcome for the GPU side. (some ARM Mali)

I just wish they would make something like this on newer hardware

by IceyEC 11y ago

I just wish they would make something like this on newer hardware

It might be possible with the new Rockchip ARM Chromebooks (more specifically Asus). It's been discussed in the Libreboot mailing list lately.

gioele 11y ago

Librem 13 and Librem 15v2 [1] are one blob away from being FSF-certifiable. And they are brand new hardware. [1] https://puri.sm/ https://puri.sm/

listic 11y ago
> one blob away I'll believe it when I'll see it. All we have is their word for it, and I really don't like the way they are promoting their product so far.
- beeboop 11y ago
  It will literally never happen. Intel would never give this up.
andrepd 11y ago
They are also expensive as all shit.
- belorn 11y ago
  Maybe they can subsidize it a bit by adding a bunch of malware. Root kits, spyware and adware are popular choices.
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    They are selling you a standard laptop, with standard hardware, commercial bios and firmware for a huge premium on price. The only difference is that it comes with Linux, but a Dell XPS Dev edition with Ubuntu for nearly half the price and you're set.
garrettgrimsley 11y ago
It isn't going to happen, at least not through the use of Libreboot [0], which is what the X200 in the parent article relies on for their firmware replacement. The X200 is one of the latest support ThinkPad models, as the newer ones also use Intel Management Extensions. Without replacing these binary blobs with free software you won't be able to get the FSF certification. [1] Or would it fall under the "secondary embedded processor" exception? >Will the Purism Librem laptops be supported? >Probably not. There are several privacy, security and freedom issues with these laptops, due to the Intel chipsets that they use. See #intel. There are signed proprietary blobs which cannot be replaced (e.g. Intel Management Engine and CPU microcode updates). It uses the proprietary Intel FSP blob for the entire hardware initialization, which Intel won't provide the source code for. The Video BIOS (initialization firmware for the graphics hardware) is also proprietary. >It will likely take many years to replace even one of these blobs, let alone all of them. Some of them (ME firmware and microcode) can't even be replaced, which immediately disqualifies these laptops from being added to libreboot. [0] http://libreboot.org/faq/#librem http://libreboot.org/faq/#librem [1] https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/criteria https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/criteria
- ploxiln 11y ago
  Purism claims to have gotten access to intel CPUs specially fused to run unsigned Management Engine firmware, and it claims to have made progress on a minimal replacement for the ME firmware. The plan for the microcode is to just not ship any updates, either in the bios or the default distro. The other parts will indeed take a lot more time, but it isn't hopeless. https://puri.sm/posts/pioneering-cpu-efforts-to-liberate-laptop-hardware/ https://puri.sm/posts/pioneering-cpu-efforts-to-liberate-lap... https://puri.sm/posts/weekly-update-on-librem-production-2015-10-02/ https://puri.sm/posts/weekly-update-on-librem-production-201...
  - garrettgrimsley 11y ago
    Wow, I wonder how they pulled that off. It's certainly a good start, but since it will be shipping with non-Free (though replaceable) BIOS binaries it would still fall short of the Respects Your Freedom hardware certification requirements. I did some digging since I have little knowledge of the Purism project. The Purism project offers an estimate of one year for replacing the non-Free blobs in the firmware. The Libreboot FAQ says that it could take years to replace the Intel FSP or Video BIOS, much less both. Given that a Coreboot developer has expressed doubts [0, 1] about the bold claims the Purism project has made in the past I'm inclined to take the word of the folks working on Libreboot. If by the time, if ever, a truly Libre product ships from Purism will it be any less dated than the X200 we have now? [0] http://blogs.coreboot.org/blog/2015/08/09/the-truth-about-purism-behind-the-coreboot-scenes/ http://blogs.coreboot.org/blog/2015/08/09/the-truth-about-pu... [1] http://blogs.coreboot.org/blog/2015/02/23/the-truth-about-purism-why-librem-is-not-the-same-as-libre/ http://blogs.coreboot.org/blog/2015/02/23/the-truth-about-pu...
jlgaddis 11y ago
An i5 @ 2.2 GHz w/ 4 GB of RAM starting at $1649 or an i7 @ 3.0 GHz w/ 4 GB of RAM starting at $1849!? Wow, good luck selling those.
- buffoon 11y ago
  Yep. I paid $170 (in UK money) for a 2.4GHz i5 520M X201 with 4Gb of RAM...

lucb1e 11y ago

For me, this is exactly what I've been waiting for. Every time there is a free software laptop (and it's not aimed at really poor people or at weighing only 20 grams) it's hugely expensive because of small scale with high end hardware. And usually it doesn't ship to the Netherlands either. This one, or at least a variant they link to, actually fixes all of this. Choosing the 240gb ssd option, the price is still quite reasonable (and SSDs are just fast, almost regardless of the rest of your setup).

lfam 11y ago

They claim they can't do it on any new Intel hardware because the hardware is fundamentally incompatible with the FSF's goals: http://libreboot.org/faq/#intel http://libreboot.org/faq/#intel

hydrogen18 11y ago
So find an ARM SoC vendor that will make hardware that is compatible with their goals?
- yuhong 11y ago
  Yea, what is also fun is that you already are running nonfree microcode when you boot any x86 processor, making skipping microcode updates useless.
- pgeorgi 11y ago
  The closest is Rockchip's RK3288 which is found on some Chromebooks. Its GPU still relies on blobs, which is their main argument against it, but since that code isn't signed (unlike the ME firmware) at least it _can_ be replaced. Somebody is working on "liberating" the firmware side of Asus Chromebook Flip (mostly work to make it useful for non-Chrome OS situations), and I guess volunteers are welcome for the GPU side. (some ARM Mali)