Need help to discover some vague notebook specifications

5 replies [Last post]
ADFENO
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Joined: 12/31/2012

Hi,

I'm thinking on buying a notebook, I selected some candidates to buy,
but their specifications on the official documentation are too vague
(and I hate vague specifications).
So, could you all, by chance, know which wireless network interface
card, which sound card and which webcam each of these have? Also, do
each of these components work perfectly with free software? Do each of
these components spy on the user?
– Sony Vaio SVF15213CB
– Sony Vaio SVF14A17PBS
– Sony Vaio SVF15213CBB
I got all the needed information about the Sony Vaio VPCEG17FB, but
just because someone brought it to me, in order for me to test GNU
+Linux-libre Trisquel on it and get the information using the lshw,
lspci and lsusb commands. Other than this, I would be left with nothing
more than the vague specifications. :(

Best regards, ADFENO.
Have a nice day.

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jsebean
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Joined: 05/23/2013

My father always said he would never buy anything off a store shelf if there was no price tag, even if he really wanted it because it angered him that someone would advertise something that looks appealing but they would always rip you off when you got to the counter to buy it.

In the case of this computer system, not only will I not buy one if there's no price tag, I also won't buy one if there is no specs and you just simply cannot find any. If you cannot find a good specs then your best bet is to look for a different machine.

Thunk Penguin has nice machines and they all have hardware that support free software. If I were to get a machine from them I'd probably get this: https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/korora-penguin-gnu-linux-notebook

I also drool over this one: https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/snares-penguin-gnu-linux-notebook

However if you insist on buying another system (like I did since I cannot afford a ThinkPengiun with the hardware setup I wanted) then you need to pay close attention to specs, particularly graphics and wireless. If you can't get the specs for a machine, move on, it's not worth risking it as you always get burned that way. I am speaking from experience, that's how I ended up with a laptop with Broadcom Wireless, which does not work with free software.

One thing I've done before was I've trolled ebay for a machine. If you use ebay, and typed in the search something like "laptop atheros intel" and check the box include description, then, any laptop listings on ebay that have atheros and intel in the system will show up. You don't necessarily have to buy from ebay but you can search for the laptops listed that elsewhere too.

I've never had any issue with sound systems if you get just a generic laptop, however, if you get one with fancy speaker setups (subwoofers, etc) then you might run into trouble. As such, I don't bother with such fancy sound systems, I just plug in my own set of decent sounding speakers.

For Wireless, get a system with Atheros wireless as they relased their firmware, I have in the past had to compile my own firmare and driver for atheros wireless systems, as the distro I had did not have the firmware built in and I wasn't about to use the non-free firmware, but it can be done.

For Graphics, get something that a.) Does not have dual graphics anything. You're wasting your money on these. and b.) Stay away from AMD graphics and nVidia. While there are some older systems that work with nouveau nvidia drivers, the newer ones may not work if I recall correctly. Intel does a good job releasing all the firmware and drivers for their integrated GPUs, and if you aim for a system with something like the Ivy Bridge GPUs they'll be decent. Odds are you are not going to do hard core gaming on a free software system, anyway.

However if you do want a really decent GPU, get a system that has the Intel Iris Pro Graphics. I read it's just about on Par with the nvidia 640m discrete card (slightly better), and it works with free software. I wouldn't suggest getting really new hardware however as you will run into issues with many of the free software distos hardware support being too old (I had this issue with my system) and it's hard to overcome unless you know how to handle a command line well and use another distro, so go for Ivy bridge or Sandy Bridge systems if you can. They are really fast and work.

Alternatively you can get the Gluglug, I don't know the specs of it though. It has a free BIOS as well. I would love to have one simply for the reason it has a free BIOS.

If you get hardware that works with free software and if you do not install any non-free software, it's pretty safe to assume you wont be spied on. The bios in systems are pretty low level parts that typically are not changed anyway, so I don't think it's that big of an issue.

So lots of options, it takes a bit of studying. Hnode is a good place to check on hardware to see if it works, so if you do get the specs you can check there, I think they also list some laptops that are known to work.

Legimet
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Joined: 12/10/2013

Maybe you could contact Sony and check.

By the way, the newest atheros (ath10k) cards have nonfree firmware.

jsebean
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Joined: 05/23/2013

Really. That sucks. Do you know of any other brands of wifi chips that are free other than the ath9k?

Legimet
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Joined: 12/10/2013

The only recent ones are ath9k (pcie) and ath9k_htc (usb, the ones for which free firmware was released by atheros last year). Atheros is the best we have.

jsebean
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Joined: 05/23/2013

Oh okay, the latter (htc) must be the one that I have for the USB wif devices I bought as I had to compile the firmware myself.