A good place to buy a Linux-libre Laptop in the UK
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Which is a good place in the UK to get a laptop that supports linux-libre? Also, it would be good if it supported a free and open BIOS, too.
Novatech in the UK are a good value shop with good support. They sell a lot of Laptops manufactured by Clevo:
http://www.clevo.com.tw/en/index.asp
Thank you for your help!
Here is what looks good at the moment:
http://www.novatech.co.uk/laptop/range/nspire2760-blackedition.html?th=g
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Many of the Clevo Laptops (I've looked into the 12" ones) have Intel Wireless cards, or come with a WiFi-card slot. That's not the perfect kind of free software support if you ask me... Besides that, they seem to be really good.
Btw., you can't have coreboot on a laptop. One variant of the T60 Thinkpad is listed by the coreboot project as somewhat compatible, but that's all. The other ones are some extremely expensive high-end machines.
For now, the best solution in terms of freedom would be some motherboard that supports coreboot, hopefully with an AMD CPU, and the GeForce 9500, the one ThinkPenguin is selling right now.
As far laptops go, you are still stuck with the free BIOS/free graphics dilemma: you can only have one of those things free, not both at the same time in the same laptop...
Think penguin ships world-wide. I am pretty sure the BIOS will be a problem but all of think penguin's laptops should work hardware wise (e.g. graphics, wireless).
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Correct, we do ship world-wide.
Most of our catalog is available from the UK although not the laptops. At least not yet. You can order from the US though. We may have some laptops available from the UK in the near future although it is still a work in progress.
Part of what is holding us up is we really want to ship some new models with different specifications than we currently have available. Unfortunately we can't put out that combination of chipsets and specifications for technical and/or part availability reasons. We are waiting to hear back from 3rd parties on certain components we would need to make it happen.
The real issue though is there aren't enough people demanding free software compatible hardware. If there were as many users purchasing free software compatible hardware as GNU/Linux users we could have every combination you could think of just about.
> Most of our catalog is available from the UK
This is good to know. After discovering Think Penguin on the trisquel
site's advert I fully intend to purchase from you in the future.
> although not the
> laptops. At least not yet. You can order from the US though. We may
> have some laptops available from the UK in the near future although it
> is still a work in progress.
I hope you continue to work on this. For many years I have been
searching for a free laptop, with no result.
> Part of what is holding us up is we really want to ship some new
> models with different specifications than we currently have
> available. Unfortunately we can't put out that combination of chipsets
> and specifications for technical and/or part availability reasons. We
> are waiting to hear back from 3rd parties on certain components we
> would need to make it happen.
I don't really understand your explanation here. I'll give you the
benefit of the doubt that the reason is valid. I have little technical
knowledge in this area; but what is the problem with shipping your
existing laptops to the UK? I can only think of power supply problems;
could this be fixed with external transformers?
> The real issue though is there aren't enough people demanding free
> software compatible hardware. If there were as many users purchasing
> free software compatible hardware as GNU/Linux users we could have
> every combination you could think of just about.
The following is personal opinion only; I don't think there is a problem
with demand. I think you (and others) just can't see it because the
correct channels aren't in place. How would you detect demand unless
1,000+ people emailed you directly saying "Please, we want free
laptops".
I'll admit that there does appear to be a problem in the UK; we are
getting left behind while the rest of western Europe; and America
actively pursue freedom. But when offered free hardware alternatives
there would be many, like myself, who would gladly take it. The problem
is that the ball needs to start rolling. I can't buy a laptop (freely)
because the price is too high. The price is too high because companies
don't see the demand. One of us has to bite the bullet.
Either way, take this as my email: "Please, we want free laptops."
Kevin Fletcher.
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By demand, I think he means more orders. If one million people from every country in the world would email suppliers like Chris saying, "please we want free software laptops", that would not make anyone like HP, Lenovo, or whomever produce them.
But if everyone starts buying stuff from Chris, or from any other supplier who is selling free software compatible hardware, profits from manufacturing closed hardware will drop. Thus the big companies will say "fuck Microsoft and the gang, we can't make money with those greedy idiots. We have to go with the times and produce stuff that operates with free drivers and has no DRM, unless we want to drop out of business."
That's the kind of thing we need to reach. I know for sure my next piece of hardware will come either from Chris or from somewhere else where my freedom is respected. It's just I don't need anything right now and have to save up for more important things.
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I think you nailed it at least partially.
There are millions of GNU/Linux users so why isn't there enough demand?
If people were purchasing millions of GNU/Linux laptops rather than purchasing millions of Microsoft Windows and Apple laptops to run GNU/Linux then you'd not have a problem getting a completely free system- that actually ran half-decently.
The way it is the options are severely limited and there isn't a whole lot we can do. Besides making it easier to get laptops with fewer restrictions and not dependant on any non-free drivers for the major chipsets... not much.
Porting a free BIOS from one laptop to another is a non-trivial task that is probably going to take at least 20,000 laptops of a particular model being sold to happen. And even then you won't have a completely free laptop. For that we would need to go to a non-x86 architecture, a considerably slower CPU, and possibly use a graphics chipset without 3d acceleration. I'm not even sure if you can put out such a system as a 1366x768 screen may not be possible using this combination of chipsets/specifications.
I think our current selection of laptops is decent considering all the limitations. And we are still working on getting some additional models with additional configuration options (higher resolution screens for instance, more ram, etc).
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That's exactly the core of the problem, people are buying hardware that is functional with Ubuntu or any other distro which happens to be their favorite. Stores are also being build upon the idea of providing Ubuntu-friendly hardware, not Linux-libre friendly. You're one of the few people who are providing exclusive Linux-libre support in their store, if not the only one.
We just have to spread the word more and more, until enough people will demand control over the devices that they purchase, instead of fancy marketing slogans.
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I totally agree with you. This isn't just an issue for libre GNU/Linux users though. Non-free software negatively impacts everybody and the Ubuntu population is (unkowningly) doing themselves and everybody else a diservice by supporting non-free software- particularly where there are decent free software friendly solutions available.
I like what Debian has done in recent releases. They stopped shipping the non-free firmware with the distribution even though there is still support for it. I think ultimately what we should be doing as distributors of GNU/Linux (Ubuntu, Linux Mint, etc) is releasing software that is more freedom friendly and point people to freedom friendly hardware. It may not be the right answer although it at least builds the demand.
I think that is largely what Trisquel has done (all a bit more extreme- for the right reasons) and even while I don't think Linux Mint, Ubuntu, or other distributions are going to impliment it to this extent there is still room to work with them where the goals overlap (freedom for support / ease of use /etc - rather than ethical).
Hi, Chris!
Thanks for replying to my thread. I have been trying to reach your website all day but it won't load. Even the google cache won't load the images. Is there something wrong with the site at the moment?
From what I have seen about thinkpenguin, it is an excellent store!
Is it really so difficult to get a laptop with a free/open source BIOS?
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Not that I know of. It seems accessible. Including Google cache. Maybe it is something on your end?
Yes- it's non-trivial to port a free BIOS. With significantly increased demand though... :)
I'm an optimist. I'd like to eventually see us shipping a laptop that wasn't x86 with a higher resolution screen. Then we could really have a completely free software friendly laptop. More so than anything we could ship today.
That is not to say what we currently ship isn't very much freedom friendly- it is. All the major chipsets (graphics, audio, wireless, etc) are free software compatible. Trisquel is fully functional. That isn't something (many? anybody?) else can say. Other than possibly by coincidence.
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The FSF's argument against the regular BIOS is that the code is no longer on a ROM and that "once in a while the manufacturer suggests installing another BIOS, which is available only as an executable".
As I understand it, the Free BIOS problem is not really a problem and the quickest fix would be to reintroduce the ROM BIOS and not rewrite the whole thing just to feel better.
Also, since writing a BIOS is a "non-trivial task", do you seriously think that the coreboot BIOS users actually perform upgrades on the regular basis like on OS or applications?; I seriously doubt that any of the Free BIOS users actually perform BIOS upgrades, even rarely.
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I actually have more 'extreme' views than RMS in regards to what should be free.
:)
However his patience certaintly trumps mine.
The BIOS should be free. If it can be changed we should be able to fix it/update it/improve upon it/etc. Simply moving to a read only BIOS seems wrong even if it solves the problem 'technically'.
The writing is non-trival although so is the porting proccess.
There are some good reasons for installing an alternative BIOS even if it isn't something one would update regularly. For instance there are some features one might want to impliment or use that aren't otherwise available.
I can think of some good examples. If I want to connect my computer to a network and control it remotely I may not be able to do that with the firmware released by a motherboard manufacturer.
However I should be able to add such features in. Then I could turn the computer on/off remotely, restart it, etc. These features actually exist I believe in the free BIOS project's BIOS. There is a non-free BIOS with similar features too.
I contacted Intel about supporting a free and open source BIOS. Here is there reply:
Thank you for your email.
Writing BIOS code is not like writing an OS device driver. Chipset specifications can vary not just between chipset models, but between steppings of the same chipset. Problems in chipset hardware and problems in BIOS code are hard to distinguish without specific hardware instrumentation. End user BIOS replacement with a third-party BIOS (whether free or not) on a commercial motherboard is not allowed by nearly all hardware vendors because of the potential for BIOS viruses and the risk of rendering the hardware useless through ill-advised modifications.
BIOS is a part of the reliability and performance promise of the hardware. Chipset specifications at the level being discussed are commonly considered proprietary by all silicon vendors, not just Intel.
The open source firmware work that Intel *is* sponsoring could lead to a solution where proprietary low-level chipset initialization code from silicon vendors is made compatible with open source higher-level platform initialization and pre-boot management.
If you are interested, we invite you to participate at the EFI and Framework Open Source Community Web site**: www.tianocore.org
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Intel has not been very cooperative in regards to a free BIOS. AMD on the other hand has been much more cooperative. Humorously the opposite is true for AMD's graphics chipsets while Intel's been very cooperative.
AMD and Intel both have there desirable pieces. Unfortunately the combination of Intel graphics + AMD board just don't go together.
AMD and Intel are tying together products that may not have been tied together in the past. This is why monopolies and allowing companies to purchase smaller companies to "get into" a business isn't a good idea. It's the consumers who are hurt.
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