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PureOS: Freedom, Privacy, and Security

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Re: PureOS: Freedom, Privacy, and Security

#21

Post by ipodopt »

elagost wrote: post #16
ipodopt wrote: post #11

A brick respects your privacy but it is not a very useful computation device. I bought a laptop from them and after about 6 months of struggling with PureOS I installed Ubuntu and it has been smooth sailing. One software issue I had with the PureOs install was a hard freeze during the booting about 60% of the time. I hope there is a newcomer to privacy crowd that is willing to air on the pragmatic side of things. Lik…

System76 also sells laptops with a Linux OS, Coreboot BIOS, and a "disabled" Intel Management Engine. (There's no true way to disable it, but any dangerous parts are removed, rendering it useless) System76 is not a newcomer, though - they've got 15 years of history. I've bought from them and found the experience to be superb.

It is true that they are more pragmatic. But still no dice for me. Perhaps, I should be more careful what I wish for, haha.

Both System76 and Purism have a "We teach you to fix it" support attitude. So when you run into trouble you are going to have to expend effort. They both have their share of bugs.

All I want is something that gets out of my way and works. I don't need the latest specs. As long as they hit a reasonable base the more ethical the better. I do software development on Linux. I don't feel like that is a big ask to have a trouble free Linux laptop.

And I knew this when I was making my purchase. At the time Purism was advertising a "luxury" laptop experience coupled with the equivalent price tag. But I got it and 7 days later it wouldn't boot because of a rather nasty software bug (which I am not sure has been resolved [I think it is a rather nasty race condition since its happens indeterministically]) due to their specific configuration. They also lied about the battery life on the website (I get less then two hours and they adv. five hours). And the WiFi doesn't really work no matter what you do as the chassis severally attenuates the signal. Which for me, as a "digital nomad" in SA at the time really really hurt.

If I where to do my laptop purchase again ATM I would get a Dell. Something like this:

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/workstations-isv-certif...

Re: PureOS: Freedom, Privacy, and Security

#22

Post by mushufasa »

ipodopt wrote: post #21
elagost wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

System76 also sells laptops with a Linux OS, Coreboot BIOS, and a "disabled" Intel Management Engine. (There's no true way to disable it, but any dangerous parts are removed, rendering it useless) System76 is not a newcomer, though - they've got 15 years of history. I've bought from them and found the experience to be superb.

It is true that they are more pragmatic. But still no dice for me. Perhaps, I should be more careful what I wish for, haha. Both System76 and Purism have a "We teach you to fix it" support attitude. So when you run into trouble you are going to have to expend effort. They both have their share of bugs. All I want is something that gets out of my way and works. I don't need the latest specs. As long as they hit a reas…

... you said you installed ubuntu and smooth sailing.

you realize pop_os! is just ubuntu with extra features, right? anything that works on ubuntu will work on pop.

and that the dell support staff will have no clue what to say if you call them on the phone and ask them about linux?

Re: PureOS: Freedom, Privacy, and Security

#24

Post by piaste »

coconut08 wrote: post #12
96aeb1e335 wrote: post #9

Being unable to connect to the Internet or any network due to a lack of WiFi support is a strong privacy and security protection mechanism indeed. And the freedom is provided by removing your choice to use nonfree WiFi drivers. Leaving that decision to you with a warning of its implications (ala Debian) is not really freedom because you'll make the wrong choice. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of FOSS, but not of d…

I feel like I must be misreading something, because your second paragraph appears to me to be the doublespeak you claim to dislike. The problem with "free software" fundamentalists is they care more about the freedom of the software than the freedom of the user. Part of free choice from a user perspective is the freedom to run proprietary blobs. Also when it comes to freedom to run or not run proprietary software the…

> I feel like I must be misreading something, because your second paragraph appears to me to be the doublespeak you claim to dislike.

GP's first two paragraphs are very clear irony.

Re: PureOS: Freedom, Privacy, and Security

#25

Post by simonebrunozzi »

_kbh_ wrote: post #18
anonypla wrote: post #14

Personally I think QubeOS is probably the best option in terms of Privacy and Security at this stage. If your hardware can handle it (16GB RAM would be best). I would seriously consider QubeOS over PureOS if privacy and security are your concerns. It works pretty well and I've been using it for a while now on not so recent hardware without much issues. Their compartmentalization and seamless virtualization is just am…

I love qubes my only gripe is that they use the zen hypervisor instead of a minimal formally verified os such as sel4 which I think would go a long way in strengthening the isolation between “domains/containers/etc”.

Xen, not Zen.

Re: PureOS: Freedom, Privacy, and Security

#26

Post by alpaca128 »

ipodopt wrote: post #21
elagost wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

System76 also sells laptops with a Linux OS, Coreboot BIOS, and a "disabled" Intel Management Engine. (There's no true way to disable it, but any dangerous parts are removed, rendering it useless) System76 is not a newcomer, though - they've got 15 years of history. I've bought from them and found the experience to be superb.

It is true that they are more pragmatic. But still no dice for me. Perhaps, I should be more careful what I wish for, haha. Both System76 and Purism have a "We teach you to fix it" support attitude. So when you run into trouble you are going to have to expend effort. They both have their share of bugs. All I want is something that gets out of my way and works. I don't need the latest specs. As long as they hit a reas…

In my experience you get the best results by going for hardware that's known to be compatible and use either Linux Mint(or maybe MX Linux) if you don't want to bother to touch the system, or something Arch-based if you want to be able to just install anything and have it work. In the long term I chose the latter and now after 2 years it's the longest time I've not reinstalled Linux, and I've had fewer issues than with Windows 10 and distros like Ubuntu. One or two times a year it's had problems but nothing a few quick googles couldn't fix. For development it's great because I get almost all the libraries and utilities in the current version right from the package manager.

All that said when you want Free software you'll have to make sacrifices unfortunately.

Re: PureOS: Freedom, Privacy, and Security

#27

Post by fsflover »

boogies wrote: post #8
fsflover wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no laptops in the market which support free firmware for WiFi, except those from Purism. So PureOS (without installing additional non-free software) will not work for you. Alternatively one could use this: https://tehnoetic.com/tehnoetic-wireless-adapter-gnu-linux-l... .

> There are no laptops in the market which support free firmware for WiFi, except those from Purism. There are at least the handful the FSF RYF certifies.¹ Unfortunately you do appear correct about Intel WiFi not having Free software support² (though that adapter certainly should). ¹ https://ryf.fsf.org/categories/laptops ² https://h-node.org/wifi/catalogue/en/1/1/Intel-Corporation/u...

Yes, there are indeed RYF-certified laptops supporting free WiFi firmware, but they are now vulnerable to Spectre, Meltdown etc, and not fixable. So unfortunately this is not very secure to use them...

Re: PureOS: Freedom, Privacy, and Security

#28

Post by fsflover »

ipodopt wrote: post #13
boogies wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are no laptops in the market which support free firmware for WiFi, except those from Purism. There are at least the handful the FSF RYF certifies.¹ Unfortunately you do appear correct about Intel WiFi not having Free software support² (though that adapter certainly should). ¹ https://ryf.fsf.org/categories/laptops ² https://h-node.org/wifi/catalogue/en/1/1/Intel-Corporation/u...

I recall running into issues with WiFi firmware from Purism. I installed the prop. driver and got some improvement. Although, I ended up upgrading the wifi chip altogether in the end.

The problem is the lack of freedom-respecting WiFi hardware which supports 802.11ac/ad/ah/ax: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque....

Re: PureOS: Freedom, Privacy, and Security

#29

Post by fsflover »

_kbh_ wrote: post #18
anonypla wrote: post #14

Personally I think QubeOS is probably the best option in terms of Privacy and Security at this stage. If your hardware can handle it (16GB RAM would be best). I would seriously consider QubeOS over PureOS if privacy and security are your concerns. It works pretty well and I've been using it for a while now on not so recent hardware without much issues. Their compartmentalization and seamless virtualization is just am…

I love qubes my only gripe is that they use the zen hypervisor instead of a minimal formally verified os such as sel4 which I think would go a long way in strengthening the isolation between “domains/containers/etc”.

What are your problems with Xen? They explain their choice very well: https://www.qubes-os.org/faq/#why-does-qubes-use-xen-instead....

Re: PureOS: Freedom, Privacy, and Security

#30

Post by fsflover »

coconut08 wrote: post #12
96aeb1e335 wrote: post #9

Being unable to connect to the Internet or any network due to a lack of WiFi support is a strong privacy and security protection mechanism indeed. And the freedom is provided by removing your choice to use nonfree WiFi drivers. Leaving that decision to you with a warning of its implications (ala Debian) is not really freedom because you'll make the wrong choice. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of FOSS, but not of d…

I feel like I must be misreading something, because your second paragraph appears to me to be the doublespeak you claim to dislike. The problem with "free software" fundamentalists is they care more about the freedom of the software than the freedom of the user. Part of free choice from a user perspective is the freedom to run proprietary blobs. Also when it comes to freedom to run or not run proprietary software the…

> The problem with "free software" fundamentalists is they care more about the freedom of the software than the freedom of the user. Part of free choice from a user perspective is the freedom to run proprietary blobs.

No one is removing the freedom to use blobs. You can use them on PureOS, too (and I did). The difference is you will not run into proprietary software by mistake (which is possible on Debian).

> Also when it comes to freedom to run or not run proprietary software there is no such thing as a wrong choice, just a personal choice.

Most users never heard about free software and do not make a choice, just use whatever is installed. This is exactly how you make a wrong choice: unknowingly.

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