The Librem 15 is already near halfway to its crowd funding goal. The Librem is a high-end notebook and as free/libre and open source friendly as is technically feasible. It is designed to run entirely with free software while requiring no proprietary drivers. The units are expected to ship in April 2015 if the crowd funding goals are met. Unlike the Yeeloong netbook which was a low-end machine, the Librem is a full high-end notebook and customizable in regards to storage and display. The screen is normally 1920x1080 but can be ordered with 3840x2160 instead. It weighs in at 2kg and the battery is expected to provide up to 8 hours of use.
[Ed. Note - We've run other projects/crowdfunding laptops before, it seems that it would be a shame to not run this. ]
(Score: 2) by melikamp on Monday December 22 2014, @10:11PM
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Arik on Monday December 22 2014, @10:33PM
The site linked works quite nicely for me with noscript and noflash, although I see indicators that if I did NOT have them it would probably be annoying.
Which page specifically are you talking about, and which element?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday December 22 2014, @10:59PM
Definition of unhelpful: When someone complains about Flash, and you come along and say "What problem" and in the same sentence you say you are using noflash.
Also, you've been asked before to stop posting with fixed with font. Just stop. Nothing you've posted to date requires it.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @11:53PM
Some adult men find that posting in monospace type makes their micropenises appear to be larger than they actually are. So maybe there's a medical reason for him always posting like that?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Arik on Tuesday December 23 2014, @12:27AM
Try to follow the thread. He complained about it not being accessible with noscript. I am using noscript (which also blocks flash) and I did not see any accessibility problems myself.
Apparently the accessibility problem appears when trying to donate, as another poster informed me. I would call his post helpful, yours not so much.
"Also, you've been asked before to stop posting with fixed with font. Just stop. Nothing you've posted to date requires it."
Hijacking threads about other subjects into a discussion of your refusal to configure your browser properly is old, and stupid. Just stop.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Marand on Tuesday December 23 2014, @12:39AM
Also, you've been asked before to stop posting with fixed with font. Just stop. Nothing you've posted to date requires it.
Here we go again, now he'll start arguing semantics and blaming you because it's not his fault that you decided that the fixed-width font HTML tags should (rightly) display a fixed-width font.
Time for some popcorn, this could be entertaining.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @01:23AM
Just mod him down as troll.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday December 23 2014, @03:21AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @04:00AM
I've just stopped reading anything he writes. Usually I can gather enough context from the replies, and when I can't, I assume he wrote a combination haiku-script about daisies.jpg in '~'
(Score: 2) by melikamp on Monday December 22 2014, @11:04PM
I don't see why this matters. The vendor seem to be perfectly fine with its backers getting a dose of Flash from vimeo, or they would pull that video. Failure to do so is a tacit endorsement. Why should I believe anything they say about free software? They are either corrupt or incompetent.
You cannot donate money without javascript, for no technical reason. Online checkout can be implemented perfectly well in pure xhtml+css, without any need for luring users into the javascript trap. Failure to provide this option is, again, a sign of either ill will toward the shopper or incompetence in free software matters.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Arik on Tuesday December 23 2014, @12:23AM
I'm fine with you getting a dose of flash from vimeo too, do you think that says something nasty about me?
I load the page, I see a big box at the top of the page showing where the video will appear, should I decide to intervene and grant it permission to run. Who knows, maybe I will want to watch it later? It's not a problem that it's sitting there, doing nothing. IF your browser DOES execute it without permission, then surely the main problem here, the one that is within your control and the one you can fix, is your browser.
"You cannot donate money without javascript, for no technical reason."
Ahh well there you go. I didnt try to give them money so I didnt notice that. That is indeed a pretty horrible malfunction.
"Online checkout can be implemented perfectly well in pure xhtml+css, without any need for luring users into the javascript trap"
Can't disagree with that, in fact, I will go further and say it should always be done that way.
But how to get there from here? Most web servers are simply going to continue serving up steaming crap until enough browsers are reconfigured to stop executing it.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday December 23 2014, @09:27AM
The vendor seem to be perfectly fine with its backers getting a dose of Flash from vimeo
The Vimeo thing shows up as an HTML5 video here. It looks like they're only using Flash if you have Flash installed and active, and if you hate Flash then why would you do that?
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Tuesday December 23 2014, @01:02PM
Interesting that right clicking on the video doesn't show the usual Flash menu, but it does indeed appear to be Flash. Is there strange cleverness at work here?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @10:16PM
Expansion options seem pretty reasonable except for the RAM.
I'm a cheap shit so I buy cheap nonfree $500 laptops but if you treat this like an Apple premium I'm sure there's a market for it. $113k worth so far.
1080p minimum with a 4K option is also nice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @10:22PM
The sold out "earliest bird" special is $1759 for 4 GB/500GB/DVD/4K. $1959 now. Good luck getting backers with that gap.
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Monday December 22 2014, @10:42PM
Is this thing better than that other $5000 wooden laptop someone was else was pushing? I bet RMS would be first in line to buy one but he doesn't have graphical WWW access.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Monday December 22 2014, @10:54PM
In this day and age, you want to start with 8gig. Especially if you are going to do any real work on it.
(And lets face it, if you are paying 1500 to 1900 bucks for a laptop you probably have some use intended for it other than email and web surfing).
But I do like the configurable second drive bay. A second drive allows mirroring, and that is probably more important than a rarely used DVD/cd.
I found the choice of OS a tad strange. The chose a virtual unknown Linux distro. (Trisquel). It is based on Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr). About all you can say about that is it avoided systemd by using upstart. But the 3.13 kernel is not an up-stream supported Long Term Supported Kernel, so that mean your so called long term support is Fourth hand (kernel-->Debian-->Ubuntu-->Trisquel). An then its Gnome. (sigh).
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Monday December 22 2014, @11:49PM
It's also expensive given the shit graphics card that in there. Unless the Intel 5200 is on par with NVIDIA/AMD, you're paying MacBook prices for the opportunity to run free software on nonfree hardware, which kind of defeats the purposes in my mind.
Also, LOL at the Ubuntu derivative. I've never actually looked at Trisquel, so I don't know how heavily modified it is, but Ubuntu is not exactly the first thing that jumps to mind when I picture someone on the soapbox about purism, purism, purism.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @12:11AM
The name "Trisequel Linux" is not a good one. Whenever I see its name written out, I read it as Trisomy Linux [wikipedia.org], and I immediately picture somebody with Down syndrome [wikipedia.org] trying very unsuccessfully to use Linux.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 23 2014, @12:36AM
It hardly rolls off the tongue, that's for sure.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by Marand on Tuesday December 23 2014, @12:46AM
I keep reading it as Triscuit [wikipedia.org] Linux. Same great Linux flavour with none of the binary-blob aftertaste!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @01:32AM
I can only wish that I thought of tasty cracker snacks when I read Trisequel Linux. Instead, I think of drooling, angry, and sometimes even violent autists babbling in rage at a Linux computer they can never hope to understand.
(Score: 2) by arashi no garou on Tuesday December 23 2014, @12:28PM
I agree it's an expensive laptop based on the components included, but I'd hesitate to call it "shit" graphics. The Haswell Intel video is pretty decent considering that it's bundled with the CPU; on a laptop that means less extra cooling and quieter fans, for one thing. I've got a core i3 Haswell machine, and the built in video can play pretty much any Steam game apart from 2014 AAA titles. For non-gaming purposes, the Haswell graphics are more than good enough. No, it's not meant for gaming, but then neither is this laptop.
And that's the whole point: This laptop is positioned as an open source friendly device. Nvidia and AMD video chips are not very open source friendly, especially compared to Intel. You're not buying this to play Windows games on (or if you are, you're a blithering idiot). Given its intended audience, I'd say it's a very powerful, open source friendly choice for video processing.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 23 2014, @03:46PM
Fair enough. I haven't had any voluntary experience with any of the newer Intel chipsets. I'm just going off memory of the old ones that were always clearly lackluster. I understand that Nvidia and AMD are both pretty hostile to the design philosophy here; I'm just sad that there's not a better alternative. I guess if Intel has improved then there isn't much call for such a thing.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by arashi no garou on Tuesday December 23 2014, @04:27PM
I will say this: If they want a truly open source friendly laptop design, they should look at ARM or MIPS based hardware and avoid the Intel compatible world altogether. I think they are hedging their bets with this device, hoping that if it doesn't sell well as an "open source" laptop, they can still slap Windows on it and sell it to the masses. I may be wrong about that, but as RMS with the Loongson based devices and Bunnie with his Novena laptop have proven, you can have a relatively cheap, truly open source friendly device without Intel under the covers.
I'm still hoping to build my own Novena-like device using one of Odroid's offerings, once I've got the extra cash laying around. Until then I'm tied to the x86 world apart from my phone and Raspberry Pi.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 23 2014, @04:57PM
You might have something with the Windows backup plan, but I think they're going to be hard pressed to find a market clamoring for a $1500+ Windows laptop that doesn't really provide any benefit that a big box enterprise laptop wouldn't also provide.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday December 23 2014, @09:39AM
For comparison, I tried to get one close to the baseline MacBook Pro, which has 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD and the same CPU. Matching those makes it $2274, vs the $1999 for the MacBook Pro. It's not possible to get a screen with the same resolution as the MBP (2880x1800), but if you go to the better screen (3840x2160) then the price becomes $2584. The Apple has the same GPU (you need to go to the more expensive model to get the nVidia card as well) and adds backlit keyboard and two Thunderbolt ports, but lacks the GigE connector. Aside from that, the specs look very similar. The MBP has a 95 Watt-hour battery, whereas this one has only a 48Wh battery, yet still claims 8 hours of use (Apple also claims 8), so either they think Linux has much better power management than OS X, or they think Linux users mostly use their computer with the screen off.
If you want to pay that sort of price range and run an open source OS, I don't understand why you'd get one of these, rather than buying the Mac and wiping OS X. You'll get better hardware and spend less money. The only place where the specs are different in a way that matters for an open source OS is the WiFi chip: it's a Broadcom part and requires non-Free firmware (so does the Atheros chip in the Librem).
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Tuesday December 23 2014, @10:49AM
Giving money to Apple (primarily because of iOS) is offensive to some, regardless of how nice some of their hardware may be.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday December 23 2014, @11:00AM
If you have a thousand people who want a laptop and want open source support, then just pick a low-margin manufacturer and model, get them all to buy it and chip in a few hundred dollars to fund driver development. That way your money goes to improving the state of open source, not to making money for ODMs.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Tuesday December 23 2014, @01:02PM
That's an excellent idea. So far I've been trying to buy from places like System76 that supply nice laptops that are designed for Linux and don't force the 'Windows tax'. Their prices are not really *that* premium though, and I'm sure KDE and others could use some bucks.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday December 23 2014, @05:48PM
Wow, those are some nice boxen. They are having a sale on their top end lappie for 1575.
The only part I don't like about it is the nVidia graphics. nVidia causes a lot of problems in any Linux installation. Since they are openly hostile to linux, I choose to avoid them.
Question: who actually makes their hardware?
A lot of these specialty linux oriented laptops tend to be extensive re-works of some other hardware.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Tuesday December 23 2014, @07:55PM
I'm unsure of the origin. I have a Bonobo, and I can say that it's very solid, very fast, and plays very well with Linux. It's a great gaming laptop, and I've had no problems with the nVidia card. I've actually had far fewer problems playing games with it than the friend I play with on Steam that uses a similar Windows laptop. Even the audio stuff for voice chat, etc has been less trouble under Linux than Windows.
My only problem with the laptop has been that the original batter basically 'failed' after a bit more than a year without even much use. Dealing with their customer service has been extremely good although they did not give me a free battery. :)
I'd recommend them to anyone ... I think I'll pick up one of their lower spec'd 17" machines for the female-unit. I'm hoping they get 4K displays though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 24 2014, @12:51PM
Cleo makes their laptops.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday December 29 2014, @04:40PM
I've got a System76 Bonx8 that I bought about 6 months ago, it's an amazing machine. Most expensive laptop I've ever bought by far, but I got so fed up with my last HP I decided to go premium this time, and I'm extremely happy with this box.
Anyway, they're really just re-badged Clevo systems, but they do some modifications to the hardware to ensure it's all going to play well with Linux systems. Apparently that even involves flashing some different firmware on some systems, although I forget the details of that. I believe each unit is hand assembled and tested in the USA too which is kinda nice. Comes with Ubuntu; I switched to Arch with no issues though. The damn thing Just Works no matter what you throw at it. It's fantastic :)
Best thing is when you crack the case open though. It's mostly plastic but sturdier than a Thinkpad, built like a tank, and designed to be serviced. Remove a couple standard Phillips screws and the bottom slides right off and you've got full access to damn near everything. The way I see it, it's basically the Macbook Pro for people who actually want to screw with their system.
The NVidia graphics have been a bit of a pain though -- wine won't work well with the proprietary drivers, VirtualBox and some games won't work well with the Nouveau ones. Not too hard to switch between the two if needed, and I don't really need to use wine much, but I do wish they had gone with AMD instead...
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday December 29 2014, @06:37PM
The NVidia graphics have been a bit of a pain though -- wine won't work well with the proprietary drivers, VirtualBox and some games won't work well with the Nouveau ones. Not too hard to switch between the two if needed, and I don't really need to use wine much, but I do wish they had gone with AMD instead...
The NVidia would be enough to keep me away. In fact, the best thing going these days is the community opensource AMD drivers.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_gallium3d_2014&num=1 [phoronix.com]
I use the AMD Radeon community drivers on a Dell. Its running Opensuse. VMware works perfect with it and virtual machines even have all the bling you would want..
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by tempest on Tuesday December 23 2014, @03:15PM
For me it's because I need a built in DVD drive. Where I work I've been using Apple laptops since 2003. The one I'm using now is a 2007 macbook pro, and this will be my last for that reason.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday December 23 2014, @07:07PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by tempest on Tuesday December 23 2014, @07:23PM
I'm kind of the "burning guy" for media where I work. Besides that occasionally a video of some sort will float in on DVDs (which I often convert), and some vendors want records sent to them on CDROM (and refuse to take flash drives). At home I rip stuff constantly so I guess I'm comfortable with disks in general, but I only burn stuff for other people. I was a big advocate of dumping floppies, but year after year the disks aren't going away.
To me it's paying a lot of money for something "without media drive", but for others I suppose they like that it's thinner and lighter (which isn't a concern of mine).
(Score: 2, Interesting) by citizenr on Tuesday December 23 2014, @12:02AM
They ship with UEFI, so all claims of being free and open go out the window. Not to mention backdoor binary blob that runs inside Intel chipset (AMT).
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @12:09AM
It uses Coreboot, with a completely free/open source UEFI implementation. There's nothing proprietary about that.
But the proprietary chipset firmware (and management engine, and microcode, and probably other Intel crap), yeah, those are way too problematic to make this thing look interesting from a freedom point of view.
(Score: 2) by meisterister on Wednesday December 24 2014, @05:10PM
Also the CPU architecture itself isn't free. If I wanted to, I could synthesize a MIPS core like the one used in the Yeeloong today. There are free verilog and VHDL MIPS cores out there with fairly decent performance with the added bonus that I can look through the source (if I have a couple weeks to spare :/) and find out how it's executing instructions.
I'm picking on the CPU specifically because all of your program instructions (barring OpenCL or CUDA) will by definition by processed by it.
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @02:37AM
At that price I damn sure better be able to get a matte finish.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @04:58AM
I love the effort to get to a binary blob free bios. Their page about exactly what they have accomplished and what is still needed to be done is great (sad they had to sacrifice their own freedom to make the progress they have [NDAs]):
http://puri.sm/posts/bios-freedom-status/ [puri.sm]
I'm not into huge laptops, so will wait until the 13", but will check back if the campaign is close to ending, and my order could make a difference to it going forward, will place an order for the huge laptop instead.
Their future plans are also great. A free phone that is not freerunner spec will be _wonderful_. These guys seem to really get it, and I'm positive their phone will have an isolated baseband processor that can't spy on the rest of the phone. Newer arm supports virt extensions that KVM can use. Maybe end up with Debian (and X11; since will have free drivers for whatever gpu they use), with Android in a vm (since android has kernel version reqs, so no chroot/container unless running an android kernel on the main phone. And, android has its own display driver). That would be great, and allow access to android ecosystem when necessary, but mostly use Deb w/ n900 type stuff ported to run on pure Deb instead of Debian based Maemo. My n900 is held together with duct tape. Can't wait for these folks to make their phone.
(Score: 2) by threedigits on Tuesday December 23 2014, @01:51PM
Just like *all* other similar laptops from Linux-friendly vendors (except for DELL). Would it be so difficult to ship a few replacement keys with the laptop?
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday December 23 2014, @03:14PM
Replacement keys aren't going to make your Enter key bigger, your left shift smaller, or help you squeeze in a # and \ key next to them respectively.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 24 2014, @12:17AM
I can live with that. What I cannot live with is no Ç, no Ñ, no dead accents, no º, ª, and so on.