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Purism Aims to Build a Philosophically Pure Laptop

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Re: Purism Aims to Build a Philosophically Pure Laptop

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it any worse than the rest of the keyboard, in terms of ergonomics?

I just found this which says exactly what my thoughts are http://ramblingfoo.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-stupidest-trend-...

The group therapy laptop UX comments on that post are hilarious.

Re: Purism Aims to Build a Philosophically Pure Laptop

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You can get font smoothing from xterm by using the -fa option. Use xfontsel to build the parameter string. There are probably "xresource" (iirc) settings to change its color palette, or you can use a 256color scheme for your editor. It's not exactly easy, but it is very fast and lightweight.

Linux has at least one nice GPL console font, courtesy of Sun Microsystems, https://github.com/talamus/solarize-12x29-psf

Re: Purism Aims to Build a Philosophically Pure Laptop

#84
post #41

What CPU is it running? Because last time I checked the Intel microcode wasn't open source

an i7, which while proprietary doesn't necessarily have to be bundled with the typical Intel AMT, which the FSF dislikes[1]. Besides the CPU, it contains proprietary nVidia chips. Another company which doesn't have too stellar of a 'open' record. [1]: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/active-management-techno...

The chip this uses , the i7-4770HQ , uses vt-d. According to invisible labs[1], vt-d can allow certain malware attacks. Afaik, even after being informed of this by invisible labs researchers, intel did nothing(afaik) to solve this.

[1]http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.co.il/2011/05/following-w...

Re: Purism Aims to Build a Philosophically Pure Laptop

#85
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The newest Carbon X1 looks pretty good, at least compared to the previous model.

It would be nice if Lenovo provided the option of the classic Thinkpad keyboard. I'm considering going with a used Thinkpad as my next laptop for that reason. Laptop choice seems to have become a monoculture of Apple clones. If Purism would provide that keyboard option I would find it hard to resist.

Goldtouch (derived from Lexmark/IBM aesthetics) makes ergo keyboards and has mobile (foldable) USB and BT versions, http://allthingsergo.com/blog/reviews/goldtouch-keyboard-rev...

Re: Purism Aims to Build a Philosophically Pure Laptop

#86
post #4

On a similar note, I've recently become very interested in buying a Lemote laptop. It's exactly the tiny form factor I'm looking, runs an open MIPS chip, and comes preinstalled with some version of Linux, though I'd probably load Gentoo as it's said to work quite well. The various models run $150-300 in USD depending on the supplier, from what I can tell. Unfortunately it's very hard to buy these computers in the US,…

The chinese sale page is here, I think it is official site (well, actually it says group-buying rather than sale, but maybe just sales gimmick): http://www.loongsonclub.com/gw/, it's 379 rmb. I don't know whether you guys in US or somewhere outside China get any transit companies that they can buy something for you in China, and then send it to you. Off topic, as a guy lived in China, I really can't understand why are you interested in something like that...

Re: Purism Aims to Build a Philosophically Pure Laptop

#87
post #23

I wish it was more Thinkpad-y rather than Macbook-y; especially since Lenovo -I've heard- is well on its way to ruining the former.

Lenovo has thankfully reversed course in 2015 after customers revolted at the Vista-like "innovations" in 2014.

Re: Purism Aims to Build a Philosophically Pure Laptop

#88
post #84
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

an i7, which while proprietary doesn't necessarily have to be bundled with the typical Intel AMT, which the FSF dislikes[1]. Besides the CPU, it contains proprietary nVidia chips. Another company which doesn't have too stellar of a 'open' record. [1]: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/active-management-techno...

The chip this uses , the i7-4770HQ , uses vt-d. According to invisible labs[1], vt-d can allow certain malware attacks. Afaik, even after being informed of this by invisible labs researchers, intel did nothing(afaik) to solve this. [1] http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.co.il/2011/05/following-w...

It was mitigated in software and fixed in post-2011 hardware, http://xen.1045712.n5.nabble.com/Xen-security-advisory-CVE-2...

Re: Purism Aims to Build a Philosophically Pure Laptop

#90
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Novena has the bottom-up approach of Bunnie saying "oh here's a cool chip. I'll build something around it and see how complete it will be in the end."Purism seems to say "Let's make a machine that lives up to everyone's expectation, and let's try and remove all closed source blobs from it". They are going the top-down way of stripping an X86 machine from all its secret firmware. I doubt they'll be as successful as Bu…

> They are going the top-down way of stripping an X86 machine from all its secret firmware. Do they consider CPU microcode updates to be secret firmware?

I am not a CPU designer, so could someone explain the threat model of cpu microcode? Is it plausible that you could fit memory scraping code, including code that interacts with OS network drivers, all inside the cpu microcode without causing catastrophically impact on performance?
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