New Laptop Thread!
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What's the best/most free laptops now? PineBook? Old Thinkpads?
I saw there was a smiliar thred in the spanish forum: https://trisquel.info/en/forum/%C2%BFqu%C3%A9-laptop-recomiendan
It seems like one commenter summarized it as:
Vikings, Libiquity, Technoethical and RetroFreedom is still the most free.
PineBook doesn't support Trisquel and is dependent on some blobs or proprietary drivers.
So nothing new here?
> PineBook doesn't support Trisquel
Even though doesn't support Trisquel, it could theoretically work under an ethical distro. It would be good if someone tried Parabola (although that would mean running a 32-bit OS on a 64-bit machine which is probably not appealing). Guix *could* also be installable (although it would probably be difficult to utilize unless you cross-compile all your ARM package substitutes on some more powerful machine).
Additionally, while other OSes that could run on pinebook are not FSDG-compliant, it doesn't mean they cannot be used without nonfree software if someone is experienced enough to avoid it.
> and is dependent on some blobs or proprietary drivers.
Booting and graphics acceleration work with Linux-Libre and blobless U-boot. No issues here.
Wifi/bluetooth requires proprietary drivers. It is still possible to leave it unused and instead plug an Atheros-based wifi adapter to USB. Perhaps it would even be possible to utilize the unpopulated pci-e slot on Pinebook for an Atheros card?
There are, however, blobs required for keyboard and touchpad. I don't think these have free firmware in ThinPads either...
ThinkPads also have nonfree EC firmware. This is supposedly free in Chromebooks (that are, BTW, quite similar to pinebook). Idk about the state of this piece in Pinebooks
Edit:
BTW, there's also Teres I from Olimex - ARM hardware that boots without blobs. It is probably not appealing due to its low specs, lack of unpopulated PCIe slot and the fact it has a processor from Allwinner - company notorious for GPL violations. Teres I also shares Pinebook's drawback of no ethernet port.
Old ThinkPads are strongly recommended. There are many models that support coreboot.
I bought a thinkpad x220, installed coreboot neutralizing the intel me, installed a freedom respecting wifi card and installed Trisquel. So far the X220 is the best computer I've ever used. Granted is not the most powerful machine out there but the hardware is great.
This is what I have been repeatedly reading and hearing about these machines, so I might be tempted too.
Does this also apply to the X220 wifi card: "The usable Atheros card for X200/T400/W500 series bears Lenovo's FRU number 43Y6511"?
(from https://trisquel.info/en/forum/i-cant-connect-wifi-usb-dongle#comment-156032)
I replaced the internal Intel wifi card with an Atheros AR9382, which is a dual band wifi card. So I really don't know if the issue in the link applies.
The post I linked to in fact suggests to do exactly what you did (in spite of the OP being about a USB dongle).
Thanks for the reference anyway.
With coreboot flashed, the whitelist is gone, so you can use any half-height mini PCIe card.
If your notebook (with mini PCIe WLAN slot) has three antennae, AR9380 is strongly recommended. If only two antennae are available, you can choose such cards as AR9280, AR9382, AR9462, etc..
> With coreboot flashed, the whitelist is gone, so you can use any half-height mini PCIe card.
Ah yes, of course. Sorry, I missed the elephant in the room there. Everything makes much more sense now, thanks.
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