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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 Zz9zZ on Thursday October 01 2015, @01:00AM
I empathize with your statement, the cost is quite high for the specs. However, it is not easy to break into a market that is notoriously closed and anti user freedom while offering any kind of competitive pricing. No way a small group focused on open systems can compete at the modern level, they have to work with vendors that will help them or old enough hardware that they can reverse engineer / modify. Also, upgrading the ram and hard drive is actually not that expensive, though more than the components themselves. I'm sure they are banking on selling a few more of the nicer rigs in order to keep the lower specc machine more affordable.
The last time I heard about an open laptop it was WAY more expensive, this falls under the possibility of "new toy" purchase :)
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 1, Troll) by Hairyfeet on Thursday October 01 2015, @02:00AM
They can stick their fingers in their ears and mode me troll all they want, can they name JUST ONE consumer device that had only their definition of freedom to separate them for the competition that DID NOT FAIL HORRIBLY? Because I can sure name plenty of corpses, OpenGPU, OpenMoko, OpenPandora, Jolla, I can keep this up all day because if all you have is your definition of "freedom" which can be ANYTHING, be it the GPL V2 version, V3 version, BSD version, AGPL, Public domain, etc etc etc, then your project will fail because you have NOTHING that more than a handful will care about.
Lets see how many here are putting their money where their mouths are, if I'm wrong? Then lets see screencaps of your orders because I bet NOT ONE of those singing the praises of the GPL here are gonna buy one of these, not one. Just as they sang the praises of all of the above but when rubber met the road and they saw what they got for their money they would have a heaping cup of STFU and not spent a single cent. So don't hate me because the cheapskates are all talk and no action, if this thing sells even 1000 pieces it will be a miracle, I personally bet they won't even hit $250, because you can bitch and whine and mod down all you want but you ain't gonna shell out $450 for a 2007 era laptop are you? I rest my case, self righteous hypocrites that are all talk but no walk.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday October 01 2015, @02:14AM
OpenPandora would have done OK if they hadn't chosen a shithole of a CC. I have one and it's quite nice and if the CC hadn't destroyed several hundred thousand dollars worth of boards by leaving them sit around without being properly taken care of, it would have come in at a relatively reasonable price.
There was a market for it and hopefully the Pyra will do better. But, in general, I agree with you, freedom of this sort isn't particularly marketable.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 01 2015, @02:26AM
I bought one several months ago. I find it liberating to run a system which is free from the BIOS up. Those Libreboot fellows are doing wonderful work that I value because I believe privacy, security, and freedom are important. Francis himself blessed my x200.
https://w6.io/r/myx200.jpg [w6.io]
(Score: 1, Troll) by Hairyfeet on Thursday October 01 2015, @06:37AM
Thank, thank you ever so much for PROVING my point! ONE GUY, one, out of a site that is...what? Now over 4000+ users? Exactly ONE was sold. Notice that I did NOT say that none would be sold, but made it quite clear that never would they sell enough to be viable which again just proves my point. After all if you look hard enough you can find an OpenMoko, Openpandora, Jolla tablet, etc but they never sold enough to keep the doors open so unless this is literally being run as a non profit charity case? Yeah its doomed.
BTW note it was an AC account, I have zero doubt when I put that out there a couple of FOSSies put out the call on the Tux forums for the one guy that had one and if he/she wouldn't have posted AC? We'd see that person had exactly ONE POST and it was that one...how about it admins? Care to tell us how many posts have come from that one IP address? I don't want to know the address, just if they ever posted here before this time...I'm guessing that is a big NO.
This is of course ignoring the rotting elephant in the room which is that laptops have a life span and the plastics and boards used in those? Yeah this ain't no Toughbook, and you have no idea how close this thing is to being dead when you get it. I'd point out how limited a run that particular Lenovo was but...lets be fucking honest, they'll never reach even mid 4 digit sales and will probably end up with a pile of the things unsold, so like OpenMoko it won't matter how limited the supply is. But of course feel free to scream at me for daring to point out your emperor is bare assed, meanwhile I will have a good ROFLCopter when this thing goes the way of Jolla, OpenMoko, OpenPandora...BTW did anybody come up with ONE open hardware of the last decade that wasn't a complete flop? Yeah thought so, I rest my case.
BTW the truly fucking sad part? Is I WANT something like this to make it big, after all we are rapidly approaching a time when X86 will be as locked as cellphones, but because the assholes that run places like the FSF are so fucking militant they make SJWs look like peaceniks they will cock it up just like they did with this. How much you wanna bet they could have used a laptop from 2014/2015 by just contacting somebody like Acer or Asus and asking them which units have AMD (so no Intel spychip) and support coreboot? But nope, got to be so anal retentive that they can't just say "If you want 100% free use this USB wireless instead of the built in one which we have off by default"...nope, got to be so fucking hardcore about it they could only find a unit that has been out of sale longer than Obama has been in office, I'm shocked they didn't follow St. iGNUcious and use an uber rare Loongsoon cheapo Chinabook! Nadella and Cook really ought to send them a fruitbasket, as stupid ass moves like charging $450 for a unit as old as dirt REALLY makes their jobs easier. After all what is Joe Public that hears about the Win 10 spying gonna do, buy this ancient POS or download the "disable spy" tool and get a much nicer and newer system for less? Hell at least if they went with the POS Chinabook they could have offered it for sub $150, at $445? Well there is retarded and there is playing Russian roulette with 5 bullets dumb, this? The latter.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 01 2015, @07:15AM
Wow. You clearly have some inner issues that you are having a hard time dealing with and have projected them on this project. So much anger and screaming, so little relevancy.
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Thursday October 01 2015, @01:29PM
Worse than SJWs?!
Wow.
If I didn't need a snowblower, I think I'd buy one of these laptops today just to piss you off. (Too bad they're on back order!) Seriously, why is free software such a trigger for you? I know you disapprove of Windows 10, but that's the future, my friend. Before you know it, you'll turn on your computer one day and find a helpful message from the SJWs: “Your computer access has been suspended in pursuance of the Anti-Microaggression Act of 2112. Have a nice day.”
You'll get out your trusty Windows XP install disk, but UEFI 19 won't run it because it hasn't been signed by the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx.
(Score: 2) by skater on Thursday October 01 2015, @11:34AM
You got moderated troll, but I think you're exactly right. (Currently you're at (Score:3, Troll), after I modded you Insightful - which is kind of funny.)
I'll soon be in the market for a new laptop, and I've decided I'm going with a Linux laptop next time. So I looked, but I'm underwhelmed by the specs and overwhelmed by the price. The Macbook Pro I'm looking to replace has better specifications than this laptop. It's not a bad idea, but...
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday October 01 2015, @02:51PM
Last time I looked Jolla [jolla.com] was still alive.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 01 2015, @06:15PM
Jolla is dead. They are DOA with their tablet product, Marc Dillon quit the company, and their marketing team walked out.
The new management is all about appeasing the Russian government (who chose Sailfish as their official mobile OS), and doesn't care about the original goals of Jolla as an open end-user device.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday October 01 2015, @09:06PM
I see. Thank you for the details.