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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

#91

Post by sp332 »

belorn wrote: post #90
cbd1984 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Sure. The TPM is connected via a bus, but there's no reason you couldn't build something like it into any other chip, including the CPU itself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module

Re: Purism Aims to Build a Philosophically Pure Laptop

#92

Post by franciscop »

XorNot wrote: post #78
TD-Linux wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Project Ara seems like it might solve that problem itself. A laptop chassis which was just a GIANT Ara frame maybe?

Project Ara is going to be bigger than a regular mobile. It just has to have all those connecting hardware pieces.

Re: Purism Aims to Build a Philosophically Pure Laptop

#93

Post by yoklov »

adamnemecek wrote: post #53
jsprogrammer wrote: post #52

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-...

That's a fairly compelling argument, but I definitely have had times where I wished for a numpad on my Macbook, mainly so that I could play games that required them (I went through a few months where I played through several traditional roguelikes, and this isn't uncommon in that genre, though vikeys is more common and far better IMO).

Re: Purism Aims to Build a Philosophically Pure Laptop

#94

Post by michaelt »

belorn wrote: post #90
cbd1984 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

You don't need to - all you need is code that says if you're processing data and you see this special sequence of bytes, start executing whatever follows it as kernel-level code.

This would be comparatively simple - you're just looking for a sequence of bytes and, if you see it, updating one or two registers.

Then you just need to get the special sequence followed by your exploit into the target's memory, which is trivial. Send them an e-mail, embed it in a picture of a cat and post it to reddit, stick it on the end of a gif in a banner ad, whatever.

If you check for the special sequence on the fast side of a fast/slow interface (like the interface between RAM and on-die cache) the speed impact would be all but invisible.

Re: Purism Aims to Build a Philosophically Pure Laptop

#95

Post by dmm »

cbd1984 wrote: post #55
hengheng wrote: post #20

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?

The CPU is fused to accept non-signed microcode so someone could eventually replace the microcode with a free alternative.

Re: Purism Aims to Build a Philosophically Pure Laptop

#96

Post by yoklov »

xamolxix wrote: post #50
wyager wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be your philosophy. I care more about open computer systems than making everyone middle class (which doesn't even make sense; by the well-ordering principle, there will always be a lower class). I think that open computers are more important for the long-term improvement of the human race than the pursuit of presently unrealizable economic goals.

> I care more about open computer systems than making everyone middle class The parent speaks about slave labour or something very close to it not about living in the suburbs. > there will always be a lower class That is your opinion and it may be true. Even so, the "lower class" could live without the worry of basic necessities. A lot of people do not currently have that luxury.

> That is your opinion

Well, it's not really an opinion though. Unless everybody had a perfectly equal standard of living (which sounds vaguely Harrison Bergeron-esque) there will always be a lower class, even if they have a rather high standard of living.

Other than that, I agree with everything you say in your comment.

Re: Purism Aims to Build a Philosophically Pure Laptop

#97

Post by caboteria »

dmicah wrote: post #46
pingswept wrote: post #6

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.

From RMS himself: http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/1999062200505NWLF

From the linked article: "Because copying hardware is so hard, the question of whether we're allowed to do it is not vitally important. I see no social imperative for free hardware designs like the imperative for free software. Freedom to copy software is an important right because it is easy now--any computer user can do it. Freedom to copy hardware is not as important, because copying hardware is hard to do. Present-day chip and board fabrication technology resembles the printing press. Copying hardware is as difficult as copying books was in the age of the printing press, or more so. So the ethical issue of copying hardware is more like the ethical issue of copying books 50 years ago, than like the issue of copying software today."

Re: Purism Aims to Build a Philosophically Pure Laptop

#98

Post by vezzy-fnord »

superuser2 wrote: post #37

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…

There actually is at least one software license (the HESSLA) which has restrictions on use and redistribution regarding human rights: http://www.hacktivismo.com/about/hessla.php

It is considered non-free by the standards of the FSF, Debian and the OSI alike. As such, ironically enough it's your proposal that ends up being "philosophically impure".

Re: Purism Aims to Build a Philosophically Pure Laptop

#99

Post by dmm »

yzzxy wrote: post #30
dmm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Lemote Yeelong is very slow, comparable to the 1.6GHz atom netbooks of 2008. You'd be better off with a thinkpad x60 with libreboot installed.

It's the novelty I'm interested in. It will be 99% used as mobile keyboard feeding into vi.

For that purpose it would serve fine. You could try and contact the person at kd85.com. They formerly sold lemotes and maybe have a few laying around.
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