Fear and Loathing in Free Hardware build quality

Greetings and salutations kernelKurtz.

I share your sentiments. Most laptops sold today really are garbage. Ridiculously glossy, 1998 resolution screens, disgusting 'chiclet' keyboards, that horrible 16:9 ratio, and most recently, soldered on RAM and solid state storage (muh storage).

You know what I did? I bought a 4 year old Thinkpad T61p for 200$. It has good, free 3D support in GNU/Linux, an unbeatable high resolution screen (you can get other T6x thinkpads with the venerable, and IMO, superior 4:3 aspect ratio), and a god-tier keyboard. The only caveat is this- you need to install a custom BIOS which will allow you to install a freedom respecting wifi card.

No fuss, no muss. Just general computing the way it should be: cheap, powerful and most importantly, liberated. Don't think you have to spend in excess of 1000$ in order to get good GNU/Linux support.

I can't speak for TP, but I know Chris is doing an important and noble job. I can only hope the quality of their laptops will improve (this isn't the first time I've heard of the RP's lacklustre keyboard).

Thanks for the reply, ahj. I think your advice is sound.

Cory Doctorow made kind of the same point last July, if you read his review carefully enough:

http://boingboing.net/2012/07/06/zareason-a-computer-company-w.html

"ZaReason doesn't really do a laptop for road warriors (yet) ... Though I thoroughly support ZaReason's mission, I regret to say that I'm not their target market."

My Alto will probably end up living a sheltered life as a desktop-replacement research machine. I'm back to square one on finding a capable, not-fragile travelling unit. I might do what you suggest, or I might try to hack around with a linuxified chromebook, single-distro. Either way, yes, 200-300, not $1000+ ... I won't be able to afford any more grand experiments for quite a while anyway.

A few things:

1. We don't have control over the entire process. Every company is dependant on dozens if not hundreds of others. The quality is limited to what is available. Doing more extensive design and development is not going to happen without significant investments and more demand.

2. We would love to do this. What we need (not ThinkPenguin specifically, although I'd love for us to take the lead) is more people purchasing the same or similar old crap. Because purchasing from a company that is selling the same crap as us is going to do nothing to change things.

3. We can't fix these laptop problems. We can fix other problems and are. The USB N adapter is a good example.

4. We are working on fixing some things though in relation to the laptops. For instance, we are trying to put out a new model that's similar without a built-in optical drive. That will fix the keyboard issue as far as many users are concerned (at least those who do not have a need for a built-in optical drive). The problem with the Royal is that of the design which is specified by Intel. It's nothing to do with this particular laptop.

5. We have a 14 day return policy and have received many returns on this model. We are not making money on it. I have been very sympathetic and tried to make customers aware of the problems some people have (ok, many). However many customers don't listen or actually like the laptop. I have two people in the office in fact who don't have a problem with it. We have sold multiple units to some people separated by months. If there was a design issue it would have become clearly apparent by now.

As far as newer laptops in general go I think the keyboards aren't that great. Again- it's not our keyboards. It's like the widescreen. I don't like widescreen. However they don't make 4:3 displays any more. Nobody ships a laptop with a 4:3 screen. Everybody is different. Some people prefer widescreen. Some people don't. Some people don't mind gloss screens. We give you an option because we *can*.

The T61P I believe shipped with an ATI graphics card. This laptop won't have 3d acceleration in Trisquel. It may be more desirable in some respects and not so much in others. Another problem is that it has digital restrictions on the wifi slot. It may be that you have a version which you were able to install an atheros wifi card in. However you probably won't know that before purchasing it.

Long story short. No matter what you do it's not ideal. I appreciate the support the Trisquel community has given us. It's done a lot of good in bringing more hardware to market and making more readily/easily available.

I hope I have explained the issues here and the problems. What we would like to do is move away from x86 entirely. However it takes a significant amount of money to do those kinds of projects. At this time it is not worth it. There are many other devices which we don't have free software friendly hardware for. Those problems will be fixed first. I'd like to get the code released for the ath3k (bluetooth chipset used in combination with a wifi chipset on mini pcie combo cards). The 2nd thing I'd like is a USB TV tuner card. There is a chipset solution that works in both Europe and the United States. It's discontinued now and if we hope to have such devices around the only solution is to stock up now (low demand means we will never be able to manufacture it).

Hi Chris, and thank you for the response.

I have great respect for what you're doing, both as an ethical small business person, and in your pro bono work within the Trisquel community. Most of it is outside my skillset (especially balancing capitalism and freedom!) ... we need people like you that can walk that line.

I'll continue to watch developments here closely, on both the hardware and software sides, as I move toward my own twisty blend of ethical purity in the digital realm.

I hoped, and continue to hope, that my story provides some insight into how the process looks from the customer side, for both vendors and fellow consumers. I don't really have any agenda beyond that in sharing--just feedback, from a particular point of view that some unknown number of potential customers might have as well.

And, in that spirit, an update: the ZA people offered to take their computer back, right on the edge of the 30 days, for a 15% restock fee. And they're sending out a Strata, which is larger--and, they say, sturdier. So I'm investing another $230 into the project, instead of into a used Thinkpad, or Chromebook ... time will tell if that was wise of me, or not.

So it did take over two weeks--and they did screw up one of my distro requests (got vanilla Debian 7 instead of the requested XFCE)--but:

I'm satisfied with the Strata so far. It's much heavier, and a little bigger than I was after, but it does have a solid and polished feel to it so far.

If I had it to do all over again, I wouldn't change my choices, except that I probably would have gone with the 15.6" (at TP, or ZA) from the start.

My overall take. You're paying a premium for freedom. And another premium for a good chance at it "just working" with your Linux of choice. If you've got the cash to throw at, consider the extra money a donation to a good cause--real companies trying to turn a profit while kicking against the Borg. That's how I think of it.

If you've got more time than money, go ahj's route above. It's got a lot to recommend it too.

And now, onward. I see that Gnewsense finally dropped a beta3 after what, four years? That's intriguing, and I've got a nice empty partition just crying out for an install ...

Where is the custom BIOS for the Thinkpad t61p?

in the list of supported boards for coreboot, there is an entry for the thinkpad t60p, but not the t61p.
http://www.coreboot.org/Supported_Motherboards#Laptops

I have purchased a Penguin desktop from ThinkPenguin for work and I haven't had any problems with it at all. I think that it would be great to see custom designed cases and fancy plastic bezels on the thing but I also realize that there's an expense there and it's hard for a small company to funnel resources to that type of thing.

Considering that a laptop is something that you travel with and it can take a beating I can completely understand that you'd want it to hold up better. The truth is that many companies build laptops that just don't hold up. Apple does happen to build some damn tough machines but look at the manufacturing and design resources they have. They also have a 30+ year history in that business. I've seen countless Dells, HPs and others that just don't hold up as well as you'd expect them to. And as Chris points out, there's only so much QA you can do when you're not designing and building these components yourself.

I can see the strange predicament that companies like ThinkPenguin are in but I do applaud their effort and software ethics. Even though it is tough for them to put out products that compete directly with the big players they have found their niche. Look at what they're doing to free the code for hardware drivers and firmware. I don't know of any other companies doing that. This can pave the way for them to build bigger and better things in the future.

I do appreciate that Chris is taking these criticisms and trying to do something about them though. That is admirable and the right thing to do. I know that it will make for better products in the future and it will help the free software community have somewhere to buy systems from when we need to.