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The Gluglug – GNU/Linux laptop with libreboot firmware

shop.gluglug.org.uk

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Re: The Gluglug – GNU/Linux laptop with libreboot firmware

#81

Post by riek42 »

verusfossa wrote: post #36
weinzierl wrote: post #2

In contrast to the Purism machines the Gluglug has free firmware. As far as I know this is the only commercially available solution with free firmware. It's also the laptop Richard Stallman uses.

I've been using a C720 Chromebook with custom SeaBios firmware and running Linux. While not a beast, a Haswell i3 with 4GB isn't bad at the ~$300 price point. Throw in a 128GB ssd and it's good to go. It's been my daily driver as I'm unfortunately content with 'open enough' given the market. http://www.amazon.com/Acer-C720-3404-11-6-Inch-Chromebook-Gr... https://johnlewis.ie/custom-chromebook-firmware/faq/

My wifes old netbook is about to die. Unfortunately I only upgraded it with a 2.5" SSD less than a year ago. I was thinking about buying a chromebook for her but was hesitant, because I'd really like to reuse that SSD. Does the C720 come with standard 2.5" SATA SSD or is it mSATA/m.2?

Re: The Gluglug – GNU/Linux laptop with libreboot firmware

#82

Post by pionar »

josteink wrote: post #67
pionar wrote: post #65

The HTTPS connection uses a self-signed cert?

If you want to advocate true freedom and true trust, why not? The CA model is certainly broken and can be hijacked/intercepted by NSA and friends. I think it makes sense.

So, I'm supposed to trust someone I've never heard of, and just take their word for it?

The fact that the site allows one to enter credit card details over plain HTTP would be my first clue not to trust this cert.

Re: The Gluglug – GNU/Linux laptop with libreboot firmware

#83

Post by technomancy »

foodstances wrote: post #15
weinzierl wrote: post #2

In contrast to the Purism machines the Gluglug has free firmware. As far as I know this is the only commercially available solution with free firmware. It's also the laptop Richard Stallman uses.

In contrast to the Purism machines the Gluglug uses second-hand, 7-year old hardware.

I've been using my X200 since I got it. Not only has it survived multiple falls from a 1.8m standing desk, it's still perfectly serviceable for everything I've needed it for. Most Thinkpads released since then are markedly worse, plagued with low-resolution or glossy screens. They've also removed the LED indicator that tells you whether the AC adapter is plugged in and when the battery level is critical.

tl;dr: sure there are newer machines with better specs, but nothing better in ways that actually matter to me.

Re: The Gluglug – GNU/Linux laptop with libreboot firmware

#84

Post by witty_username »

josteink wrote: post #67
pionar wrote: post #65

The HTTPS connection uses a self-signed cert?

If you want to advocate true freedom and true trust, why not? The CA model is certainly broken and can be hijacked/intercepted by NSA and friends. I think it makes sense.

Anybody could intercept the connection with an unsigned connection. At least they could have used HSTS so that only the first visit is vulnerable. If you have a signed cert the NSA has to work harder; there are more logs and it's more riskier for them.

Re: The Gluglug – GNU/Linux laptop with libreboot firmware

#85

Post by mbrock »

rimantas wrote: post #80
ekianjo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As to the software, I could care less mostly. This offering is essentially for people who care about the software more than anything else. So this is probably not for you. > priorities for technically inclined users. There are a bunch of very different people who can claim to be technically inclined. Let's stop generalizations.

They don't care about software, they care about ideology.

What do you mean by ideology? You mean they care about ideals and ethics related to software? Is that a bad thing? Even to people who don't care about ideology, ideology matters because they are affected by the dominant ideology. Actually that's how ideology mostly tends to operate, through the quiet complicity of the people who don't care. So when you talk about software without talking about licensing, freedom to read and change source code, etc, that is how the ideology of proprietary software becomes normalized.

Re: The Gluglug – GNU/Linux laptop with libreboot firmware

#86

Post by userbinator »

kogepathic wrote: post #69
userbinator wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That CPU is still much faster than some of the newer Atoms, for example: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core2+Duo+P840... http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Atom+Z3735F+%4... http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Atom+C2338+%40... http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Atom+E3845+%40... (Look at the single-thread rating and you'll see that a single Core 2 core is 2-3x faster t…

You're comparing apples to oranges here. Yes, everything you listed is an Intel x86 part, but the Z3735F is the CPU in my Windows 8 tablet, which has a 4W "SDP" (scenario design power). The P8400 has a TDP of 25W, or about 6 times the heat dissipation of the Z series atom. So of course the Core 2 can beat an Atom, it's in a completely different category of processor. If you are going to compare apples to apples, pick…

I know there are more powerful CPUs available; the point is whether that CPU is sufficient for most of the things you're likely to use this laptop for. Is your Win8 tablet too slow, or does it do what you want with good performance?

Re: The Gluglug – GNU/Linux laptop with libreboot firmware

#87

Post by mark_l_watson »

technomancy wrote: post #83
foodstances wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In contrast to the Purism machines the Gluglug uses second-hand, 7-year old hardware.

I've been using my X200 since I got it. Not only has it survived multiple falls from a 1.8m standing desk, it's still perfectly serviceable for everything I've needed it for. Most Thinkpads released since then are markedly worse, plagued with low-resolution or glossy screens. They've also removed the LED indicator that tells you whether the AC adapter is plugged in and when the battery level is critical. tl;dr: sure…

I am thinking of buying a Gluglug, mostly as a political statement. Is it easy to replace the battery, memory, disk, etc. on the X200?

BTW, I appreciate the work you did in the Clojure community!

Re: The Gluglug – GNU/Linux laptop with libreboot firmware

#89

Post by fixermark »

This looks good, but it's a bit pricey for my tastes and that hardware is an unreliable brick of a machine.

I'd love to see someone hit the market with a working Linux-ready netbook. I used to have an Acer One cobbled into that state, but the lack of direct support from the vendor meant that things like power management and sleep-on-lid-close never quite worked right. It's the little things you miss when you go off the vendor's book on operating system choice.

On the other hand, the stock Vista on that machine was dog-slow. Being able to strip down the crap from the UI and run much faster was a Godsend for hacking around on projects while away from the desk.

Re: The Gluglug – GNU/Linux laptop with libreboot firmware

#90

Post by fixermark »

mbrock wrote: post #85
rimantas wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't care about software, they care about ideology.

What do you mean by ideology? You mean they care about ideals and ethics related to software? Is that a bad thing? Even to people who don't care about ideology, ideology matters because they are affected by the dominant ideology. Actually that's how ideology mostly tends to operate, through the quiet complicity of the people who don't care. So when you talk about software without talking about licensing, freedom to r…

... and as a result, I end up with reliable, light, somewhat costly machines(1) that come from one or two vendors and provide a consistent if inflexible experience.

This is not the lose-lose that some people seem to think it is. One of the reasons closed-source few-vendor is a dominant ideology is that it actually satisfies the use-case for an awful lot of users. Meanwhile, in 2015, I still can't get a reliable basic audio(!) experience on my Linux distributions because the open-source community can't seem to decide on the right way to do something as fundamental as "pipe bytes to the digital-analog-conversion hardware."

(1) Costly in general. With the Gluglug running at around US $500, it's not winning the cost game.

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