SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has awarded its Respects Your Freedom (RYF) certification to the Taurinus X200 laptop sold by Libiquity.
This is the first product of Libiquity to achieve RYF certification. The Taurinus X200 has the same architecture and certified software as the Libreboot X200, which was certified in January 2015. The Taurinus X200 can be purchased from Libiquity at https://shop.libiquity.com/product/taurinus-x200.
The Taurinus X200 is a refurbished and updated laptop based on the Lenovo ThinkPad X200, with all of the original low-level firmware and operating system software replaced. It runs the FSF-endorsed Trisquel GNU/Linux operating system and the free software boot system, Libreboot. Perhaps most importantly, all of Intel's Management Engine (ME) firmware and software has been removed from this laptop.
The RYF certification mark means that the product meets the FSF's standards in regard to users' freedom, control over the product, and privacy. The Taurinus X200 comes with the fast and secure Libreboot firmware and the FSF-endorsed Trisquel GNU/Linux operating system. Importantly, Intel's Management Engine (ME) firmware with its applications like AMT (remote out-of-band management/backdoor system, part of "vPro") and PAVP (audio/video DRM) have been removed from this laptop.
The laptop ships within the USA and may be purchased from the Libiquity Store.
(Score: 2) by pixeldyne on Wednesday September 30 2015, @10:52PM
I think it's the memory (amount) and disk (speed) that make a laptop usable. While the starting specs are only barely usable, it should be easy to upgrade to 16gb ram and a sata2 ssd (it's the latency that matters not so much throughput). Not sure but maybe the CPU is socketed (although these can be very expensive to upgrade, even from ebay). However, I can't tell if they're saying they won't support any chipsets made after 2008 at all, or just Intel's. I assume AMDs are also not supported. I think I'd buy it, but it wouldn't last longer than a year or two.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 30 2015, @11:56PM
The max ram for the X20* series is 8GB.
Personally, I think it was the best laptop created in the past decade or so. Perfect size, great upgradability, and removable battery / HDD tray, and upgradable to either a 1440x900 display or a 1280x800 IPS display. It still retains the classic Thinkpad keyboard, at almost the same size as the 14" model.
The X201 would have been a better choice, since it had two internal speakers instead of one, and supported AES-NI encryption at the hardware level. I was using it as my daily driver until earlier this year when I moved to a desktop. But this laptop in a dock would honestly do the same job.
Anything later gives up the 16:10 ratio, and later models got rid of the classic keyboard.
(Score: 1) by pehjota on Thursday October 01 2015, @02:41AM
The X201 is the same basic shell, but yeah, it has some nice extra features like dual speakers. (FWIW, Libiquity is also working on a 14" laptop with dual speakers, like Minifree also has.) But the X201 has unremoveable proprietary Intel Management Engine firmware running in the PCH chipset.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 01 2015, @03:09AM
Did not know that about the newer Intel processors. Thanks for the info. My only reservation is running an encrypted HDD with a Core2 Duo. Do-able, yes, but I remember a huge performance increase when I swapped in the X201 base.
(Score: 2, Informative) by pehjota on Thursday October 01 2015, @02:26AM
Unfortunately the CPU on this laptop is in a soldered BGA package, but a 14" laptop with a socketed and upgradeable PGA CPU is planned.
Intel CPUs after ~2008 can't work without proprietary firmware, but more recent AMD ones can. Libreboot supports one recent (and soon another very recent) AMD server board, for example. And there are some ARM laptops that can run with only free/libre and open source boot firmware (except that the built-in and soldered Wi-Fi NIC requires proprietary firmware).
(Score: 1) by pehjota on Thursday October 01 2015, @02:28AM
Oh, and these things tend to last much longer than a year or two. They're built better than pretty much any non-military laptop.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 01 2015, @02:47AM
"I think it's the memory (amount) and disk (speed) that make a laptop usable."
Definitely. A slow computer is still useful, if it isn't swapping to disk all day. A fast computer is near worthless if it is thrashing the hard disk. I suspect that even with an SSD, insufficient memory would make a dog of the machine. SSD is incomparably faster than a traditional HD, but it's still slow compared to memory.