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So impressed with Purism's hard work and ethics. I'm so glad it looks like this will reach it's funding goal. I'm very surprised that the phone will have an op

So impressed with Purism's hard work and ethics. I'm so glad it looks like this will reach it's funding goal. I'm very surprised that the phone will have an open GPU. I've been looking for a laptop replacement for ages that has an open CPU and GPU. While I can avoid Intel like the plague and go straight for an ARM CPU, the GPU always tends to be a closed source binary blog. If Purism can crack this and get a full open source phone, I hope they build a lightweight laptop using the same sort of specs. This could mean avoiding the whole ME cleaner requirement for their Librem laptop range, removing the spyware [1] from all Intel chips. 1. https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intel https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intel

microcolonel 9y ago
Any of the Qualcomm DragonBoards will perform considerably better than any i.MX8 chipset board AFAIK. Freedreno (Qualcomm Adreno driver in Mesa) is a lot farther along than Etnaviv for the time being. There's also v4l2-based hardware video decode in upstream kernels for (supported) Qualcomm chipsets. If you want a non-Intel desktop, you could also look to any of the high-performance AArch64 or Power boards with PCIe slots in them, and slot Radeon in.
- craftyguy 9y ago
  I would rather support a chip maker with open hardware, even if currently not the most performant, than one which does nothing and relies on a crowd of volunteers to make it work.
someinfoforyou 9y ago
> If Purism can crack this and get a full open source phone, I hope they build a lightweight laptop using the same sort of specs. The chip they're using is from the i.MX line with Vivante GPU. The reason this chip has open source drivers is because of the etnaviv project, which was funded by bunnie and the backers for his Novena project. So in a sense, the laptop you want already exists and in fact came first. It's just a little pricey and kind of rough around the edges.
tom_mellior 9y ago
> go straight for an ARM CPU Are there actually open ARM CPUs? My very vague understanding was that ARM claims that their ISA cannot be implemented without infringing some patents on some instruction encoding tricks they hold.
- turblety 9y ago
  Yeah you're right. Basically my concern is having backdoors written into driver firmware that can not be removed. For example Intel's ME [1], AMD's PSP [2], Samsung's BL1 bootloader, etc. For me personally I don't mind using hardware that has patents and copyright, so long as when I buy it I'm free to do what I want with it without undue surveillance from corporations or government. So yes, I guess the hardware isn't open, but all the software/firmware on can be (for example the RK3288 [3]) (of course with the exception of the GPU). 1. https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intelme https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intelme 2. https://libreboot.org/faq.html#amd https://libreboot.org/faq.html#amd 3. https://libreboot.org/docs/hardware/c201.html https://libreboot.org/docs/hardware/c201.html

microcolonel 9y ago

Any of the Qualcomm DragonBoards will perform considerably better than any i.MX8 chipset board AFAIK. Freedreno (Qualcomm Adreno driver in Mesa) is a lot farther along than Etnaviv for the time being. There's also v4l2-based hardware video decode in upstream kernels for (supported) Qualcomm chipsets. If you want a non-Intel desktop, you could also look to any of the high-performance AArch64 or Power boards with PCIe slots in them, and slot Radeon in.

craftyguy 9y ago
I would rather support a chip maker with open hardware, even if currently not the most performant, than one which does nothing and relies on a crowd of volunteers to make it work.

someinfoforyou 9y ago

> If Purism can crack this and get a full open source phone, I hope they build a lightweight laptop using the same sort of specs. The chip they're using is from the i.MX line with Vivante GPU. The reason this chip has open source drivers is because of the etnaviv project, which was funded by bunnie and the backers for his Novena project. So in a sense, the laptop you want already exists and in fact came first. It's just a little pricey and kind of rough around the edges.

tom_mellior 9y ago

> go straight for an ARM CPU Are there actually open ARM CPUs? My very vague understanding was that ARM claims that their ISA cannot be implemented without infringing some patents on some instruction encoding tricks they hold.

turblety 9y ago
Yeah you're right. Basically my concern is having backdoors written into driver firmware that can not be removed. For example Intel's ME [1], AMD's PSP [2], Samsung's BL1 bootloader, etc. For me personally I don't mind using hardware that has patents and copyright, so long as when I buy it I'm free to do what I want with it without undue surveillance from corporations or government. So yes, I guess the hardware isn't open, but all the software/firmware on can be (for example the RK3288 [3]) (of course with the exception of the GPU). 1. https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intelme https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intelme 2. https://libreboot.org/faq.html#amd https://libreboot.org/faq.html#amd 3. https://libreboot.org/docs/hardware/c201.html https://libreboot.org/docs/hardware/c201.html