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Purism Librem Laptops Completely Disable Intel’s Management Engine

puri.sm

151–160 of 169 posts

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

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They introduced experimental support for fractional scaling in 3.26: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/09/enable-fractional-scaling...

This is good to know. I may have to try this out and see how it works. The other option is to just install KDE since they seem to have implemented HDPI support _correctly_.

Yes, KDE on 4k looks good since 17.01. But non Qt/KDE GIMP, InkScape, Audacity, are still a pain to use on Linux with HiDPI.

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

#152

Call me cynic, but it wouldn't surprise me if the NSA intercepted those in their hardware interception program[1] and install spyware on them whenever they are delivered to an address outside the US. [1] https://www.extremetech.com/computing/173721-the-nsa-regular...

Note that they do let you swing by the factory in South San Francisco and to pick up your machine, if you like.

They also offer some kind of tamper resistant packaging, but at this point we’re entering a hall of mirrors of paranoia. If you have some clever system to resist interdiction, if it’s cheap and effective, I’m sure they’d consider it.

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

#153
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…

> the off center keyboard is a deal-breaker. It’s just asking for RSI.

No. Laptop are a disaster for RSI and posture in general. The off center keyboard has a tiny effect. Use external keyboards and monitors!

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

#154
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

Use decentraleyes!

https://decentraleyes.org/

> Protects you against tracking through "free", centralized, content delivery. It prevents a lot of requests from reaching networks like Google Hosted Libraries, and serves local files to keep sites from breaking. Complements regular content blockers.

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

#155
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I remember 640x480 being the highest resolution my first personal computer could display Eeee, you were lucky. My first personal computer maxed out at 320x256, or 160x256 if you wanted more than 4 colours.

> 320x256 LUXURY. We had 32x24 b&w characters and we were glad of them. (ZX81, nominally 256x192 pixels but only accessible as 8x8 character cells.)

LUXURY. My first experience with programming was some programmable TI (I think?) calculator that had 8-digits LCD screen and a memory of 39 "slots".

In the manual, there were some programs you could type in, including "Mars Lander". The calculator shows a landing speed (e.g. "8.2") and then you need to type the thrust adjustment (e.g. -1.0 or +3.0) and then the new landing speed is shown. If you do it right, you land safely and it shows "00000" or something. But nah, that did not happen, you just crash ("11111")

Following that, when I got ZX-81 with 32X24 screen, and like, 1Kb of memory, I was in heaven :)

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

#156
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

It's useful in 3D programs like Blender for navigating around the 3D space.

Absolutely. As a multimedia producer, I can not use a keyboard without numpad, not only with blender, but with many other open source or proprietary software.

Especially Adobe products are terrible with keyboard shortcuts, where in some cases you can not edit (AE) or can not map properly in non US layouts.

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

#157

Call me cynic, but it wouldn't surprise me if the NSA intercepted those in their hardware interception program[1] and install spyware on them whenever they are delivered to an address outside the US. [1] https://www.extremetech.com/computing/173721-the-nsa-regular...

Note that they do let you swing by the factory in South San Francisco and to pick up your machine, if you like. They also offer some kind of tamper resistant packaging, but at this point we’re entering a hall of mirrors of paranoia. If you have some clever system to resist interdiction, if it’s cheap and effective, I’m sure they’d consider it.

What prevents someone from getting a job there and tampering with them while in the factory when no one is looking?

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

#158
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why the OS should check to make sure the ME is still disabled and not boot otherwise, or signature check it somehow, create a hardware indicator, etc. But then there's still the harddrive firmware and who knows what else. Still, this is upping the bar quite a bit if you're security conscious. In security all you can do is make the attackers lives harder, you can't fool proof it. Plus they mentioned two differe…

"But then there's still the harddrive firmware and who knows what else." Graphics card blobs, wifi cards blobs, etc. Just about every vital subsystem on a modern PC/phone/tablet etc. has been compromised by design through closed device drivers so that someone with enough skills and access to those information (such as some 3 letter agencies) can create a sort of covert channel where data can be computed, read or stor…

I think you may be interested in a development of a stateless laptop [1] by Joanna Rutkowska. They are trying to prevent any data storage outside of the user knowledge and control.

[1] https://blog.invisiblethings.org/papers/2015/state_harmful.p...

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

#160
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No you just want fancy things. Whatever, that's fine. But it's not a requirement for 'most developers' - in fact the ones I know with high resolution laptops don't want them, they're just annoyed by lingering issues with UI scaling and tiny text. I can't think of a sane reason for having font sizes so small that you need 4k to display text properly. Text is plenty crisp at 1080. Also this is a laptop. More pixels mea…

> lingering issues with UI scaling and tiny text.

I'm on a Mac. What are these "issues" you speak about? What third-world computer are you using that can't do text right in 2017?

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