71–80 of 145 posts
They talk about ensuring that open source works on the machine, anyone else concerned if they will try to inhibit close source software? Like this whole shitstorm around GCC?
I'm excited about a company that will ensure a good, compatible experience with linux on a laptop. I develop on mac osx and linux vms (vagrant). I want to move to linux but the linux desktop experience just isn't there yet.
I don't think it ever will be. I first installed redhat linux back in 95, and it was a multi weekend project, and I had to solder something. Since then, the installation has gone from insane to Windows XP easy, but it seems stuck there. And even for a media server, I have to dip into the shell to get it working. If you still have to use the shell 20 years later for a non edge case, it isn't going to get better, there…
How do they do Wi-Fi? Bluetooth?
Bluetooth isn't mentioned on the campaign page [1], but the wifi is ath9k. [1] https://www.crowdsupply.com/purism/librem-laptop
So I'm interested to see that there's actual open source firmware for the ath9k, and it looks like the hardware will accept unsigned firmware images. Have the rules changed? Or are the regulators simply less concerned about wifi relative to mobile phone radios?
Stallman, I remember that he used a Loongson computer
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bluetooth isn't mentioned on the campaign page [1], but the wifi is ath9k. [1] https://www.crowdsupply.com/purism/librem-laptop
Last I heard, radio firmware pretty much had to be locked down or the regulators wouldn't certify you; the principle here being that as all modern radio chipsets are basically software-defined radios, they're indistinguishable from incredibly effective jammers. They consider the right to dial emergency services on a cell phone and have it work to be more important than the right to play with hardware. So I'm interest…
But that's based on half-remembering that talk, which I watched five months ago.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be amazing if Novena or other projects like it evolved into something resembling Google's Project Ara, but for laptops instead of phones. Laptops have unfortunately never really achieved the modularity and ease of modification that PCs have. They are seemingly perpetual slaves to cost, form factor and all the concerns that follow.
The Novena is pretty good in that its schematics are entirely open source. It also has plenty of expansion headers, a FPGA, removable RAM and wifi cards. However, I don't think modularity is as important, because it's hard to make something modular, performant, AND low cost. If you have the sources, you can always make a customized version to suit your exact needs yourself, without the need for it to be modular. (typ…
A truly philosophically pure laptop would, among other things, guarantee absolutely no involvement of slave labor/abusive practices in its supply chain. Everyone from the mines to the assembly plant to the retail store would have secure, middle-class employment. Revenue would not fund political corruption or violence related to labor, natural resources, or environmental impact. But it would not contain binary blobs e…
This appears to be similar to the open source hardware Novena laptop ( https://www.crowdsupply.com/kosagi/novena-open-laptop ), but closed source hardware. From the Purism crowdfunding campaign: "The Librem 15 is the first high-end laptop where you are in control and have complete visibility into the kernel, the operating system, and all software." It seems like the Novena came first and is substantially more free/op…
I'm interested if anyone has any insight into why there is a such a push for "Free" software (for example by the FSF, Richard Stallman), but not also "Free" hardware.