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Purism Librem Laptops Completely Disable Intel’s Management Engine

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Re: Purism Librem Laptops Completely Disable Intel’s Management Engine

#51

Post by ionised »

andy_ppp wrote: post #34
broodbucket wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1080p is considered low res! Crazy the times we live in. There are still laptop manufacturers making 1366x768 displays, the worst resolution ever invented. I understand pixel density is nice, but for the vast majority of workflows you do not need anything better than 1080p on a 15" display.

No you don’t need better than 1080p but most developers need crisp text and I would like to go further and 4k 15inch displays would be perfect for me as it would allow me to have smaller text without a loss of quality.

I can't say my development really suffers between my hi-res 27" 4k/1440p monitors at home and my 24" 1200p screens at work.

Re: Purism Librem Laptops Completely Disable Intel’s Management Engine

#52

Post by scoopr »

zsoltgyongyosi wrote: post #38
scoopr wrote: post #35

I've been looking at librem laptops, as I'd kinda like a dedicated linux laptop. But as with many of these kinds of projects, i18n concerns are secondary, and in this case, there is no scandinavian/nordic keyboard options :/ (And I do appreciate that it might not be quite simple to have all kinds of keyboard configurations available)

It's surprisingly easy to switch to the English layout. As a programmer, it was refreshing to leave behind the convoluted key combinations while coding. (I'm looking at you, `tilde`, on a Hungarian keyboard) On Linux, writing accents using a compose key isn't much slower than typing the letters directly either.

For programming, yes, it might even be beneficial to use the US layout, and I've even used FI keyboard with US layout for longer stretches of time. But for communicating with own language, not quite as useful. I guess I could just not do that ;)

Re: Purism Librem Laptops Completely Disable Intel’s Management Engine

#53

Post by ionised »

Yaggo wrote: post #27
hedora wrote: post #6

I really want one of these, but the ergonomics look awful. Is there a technical reason they only come with low resolution (1080p) screens? (“Linux” is not a valid reason...) Also, as much as I would like a 15” screen, the off center keyboard is a deal-breaker. It’s just asking for RSI. Does anyone own one? How is the trackpad / keyboard / battery life / fan noise? Maybe I can deal with 1080p in exchange for a reasona…

> Also, as much as I would like a 15” screen, the off center keyboard is a deal-breaker. It’s just asking for RSI. Agree. Is entering numbers with a numpad so common use case that it justifies the inclusion of mini-numpad at the cost of off-centering the main keyboard?

I never want to do without my numpad.

I'm using a 2017 MacBook Pro in work right now and I ended up investing in a separate keyboard and mouse, partly due to lacking the numpad but also because the keyboard on this thing just feels horrible to use.

Re: Purism Librem Laptops Completely Disable Intel’s Management Engine

#54

Post by oelmekki »

zsoltgyongyosi wrote: post #38
scoopr wrote: post #35

I've been looking at librem laptops, as I'd kinda like a dedicated linux laptop. But as with many of these kinds of projects, i18n concerns are secondary, and in this case, there is no scandinavian/nordic keyboard options :/ (And I do appreciate that it might not be quite simple to have all kinds of keyboard configurations available)

It's surprisingly easy to switch to the English layout. As a programmer, it was refreshing to leave behind the convoluted key combinations while coding. (I'm looking at you, `tilde`, on a Hungarian keyboard) On Linux, writing accents using a compose key isn't much slower than typing the letters directly either.

I've considered a few times switching to a qwerty (from french azerty), but there are two things that made me pull back:

1. french people I know who use qwerty tend to not write any accentuated characters anymore. I'm ready to accept compose keys are usable, but it clearly seems to encourage incorrect spelling when you use a language with a lot of accentuated characters in a sentence

2. vim. I really don't see myself fighting to remap my habits and workflows, given what I perceive as very few benefits switching layout would provide

Re: Purism Librem Laptops Completely Disable Intel’s Management Engine

#55

Post by vidarh »

einr wrote: post #50
zsoltgyongyosi wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's surprisingly easy to switch to the English layout. As a programmer, it was refreshing to leave behind the convoluted key combinations while coding. (I'm looking at you, `tilde`, on a Hungarian keyboard) On Linux, writing accents using a compose key isn't much slower than typing the letters directly either.

Scandinavian languages do not really have accented letters, though. What we have in Swedish, Danish and Norwegian are three more letters than the English alphabet, with distinct sound and meaning, that happen to look a bit like accented A's and O's. These letters are very common in our languages and a without them would be nigh unusable; like a keyboard without V, P or B (these letters have similar frequency in Swedi…

I'm Norwegian, and what I've found is that I prefer a US keyboard layout for coding, and only switch to a Norwegian layout when writing Norwegian.

Especially given that æøå are generally using the triangle right of p and l, and so messing with my brackets and braces.

I remember those well enough that I have no reason to have them on the keyboard, which doesn't make it particularly inconvenient not to have them on the keys, and I can always switch to US layout with a quick keyboard combo if I need a character I don't remember the position of on Norwegian layout.

Of course, it helps that I live in the UK where the layout differences between US/UK keyboards are minor, so I'm not particularly inconvenienced when I have to use someone else's keyboard - if I lived in Norway I'd probably have stuck to a Norwegian layout.

Re: Purism Librem Laptops Completely Disable Intel’s Management Engine

#56

Post by otron »

scoopr wrote: post #52
zsoltgyongyosi wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's surprisingly easy to switch to the English layout. As a programmer, it was refreshing to leave behind the convoluted key combinations while coding. (I'm looking at you, `tilde`, on a Hungarian keyboard) On Linux, writing accents using a compose key isn't much slower than typing the letters directly either.

For programming, yes, it might even be beneficial to use the US layout, and I've even used FI keyboard with US layout for longer stretches of time. But for communicating with own language, not quite as useful. I guess I could just not do that ;)

I use the "mac" variant option for the US QWERTY layout (`setxkbmap us -variant mac`). This functions as a regular US QWERTY layout, but I've access to various "special" characters and latin extended characters (e.g. æåøœ¡), as well as ^'"`~ as dead keys (to create îûéèñũäüö or whatever) via a modifier key (I use alt, but you can set it to whatever).

This allows me to use a single functional keyboard layout to write English, Norwegian _and_ code in.

Re: Purism Librem Laptops Completely Disable Intel’s Management Engine

#57

Post by jaclaz »

letsgetphysITal wrote: post #40
kbart wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Embedded) System engineer, so lot's of hex typing and editing. It's a pain without full numpad.

How about a USB numberpad with all 16 hex characters? http://www.ipv6buddy.com/ I am in no way affiliated, I just searched "USB hex numberpad"

>How about a USB numberpad with all 16 hex characters?

Thanks for posting that, I had no idea that such a USB numpad existed, though I have no "real" use for it, it seems to me like a really nice idea.

Re: Purism Librem Laptops Completely Disable Intel’s Management Engine

#58

Post by belorn »

guaka wrote: post #33

For website of a purist software freedom company I was surprised to see Privacy Badger show up with a red 5: ajax.googleapis.com fonts.googleapis.com secure.gravatar.com fonts.gstatic.com code.jquery.com

Can someone explain why you would want to link to fonts/js libraries rather than have a copy on the server and server that yourself?

Re: Purism Librem Laptops Completely Disable Intel’s Management Engine

#59

Post by askvictor »

belorn wrote: post #58
guaka wrote: post #33

For website of a purist software freedom company I was surprised to see Privacy Badger show up with a red 5: ajax.googleapis.com fonts.googleapis.com secure.gravatar.com fonts.gstatic.com code.jquery.com

Can someone explain why you would want to link to fonts/js libraries rather than have a copy on the server and server that yourself?

One reason would be that the browser will cache them if they are used in multiple sites, so loading will be much faster on subsequent sites using the same resources. Another might be that such resources load faster off a CDN than your own server.

Re: Purism Librem Laptops Completely Disable Intel’s Management Engine

#60

Post by askvictor »

kbart wrote: post #32
Yaggo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity, what kind of work do you do?

(Embedded) System engineer, so lot's of hex typing and editing. It's a pain without full numpad.

How do you go about entering a-f in hex? Genuine question, I find I quite annoying when I need to do it, even with a number pad
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