New Korora Penguin Laptop /w Trisquel

https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/thinkpenguin-now-accepting-bitcoins-bitpay

We're half way to decent support for a number of regions. Right now we have AC adapters that support the UK, Europe, Australia, Japan, and North America. I should know shortly what keyboard layouts we'll carry for this model as well although it's always hard to tell when they'll get here. It's still at least 3+ weeks away. They have to traverse a major ocean.

It is also always hard to tell as there are many intermediaries and companies involved with production of these types of complex devices. Different parts come from different factories and frequently there is only one or a handful of places to get any given part. If they're slow or non-responsive we're stuck (as is everybody else in many cases). Ideally we should be offering matte screens as an example on the Snares model. We had them in fact, but the one factory which was producing them apparently stopped. We have no idea when they'll start producing again and while other companies were also using this screen they don't have them either. Nor is there any spare stock laying around in a warehouse somewhere we can snatch up. It's all dried up at this point. None the less we do have matte screens for the Emperor and the new Korora.

We also have UK, German, Spanish, French, and US layouts for the Snares:

https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/snares-penguin-gnu-linux-notebook

We also have Spanish and US keyboard layouts for the Emperor:

https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/emperor-penguin-gnu-linux-notebook

Not sure where I implied AC adapters were non-trivial. I was speaking a bit broadly in regards to AC adapters though. There is technically one AC adapter for each model and it'll work just about anywhere provided it has the right cable. It's the cables we stock in a variety of flavours for the different regions we frequently ship to. Some of these are harder to get a hold of- but it's definitely trivial in the scheme of things. It's a standard part. It's just not stocked by that many companies and can take time to get a hold of if your just getting 1 piece. Obviously a local person in the region is going to have an easier time getting a hold of such a cable if there somewhat tech savvy.

The keyboards on the other hand are more non-trivial given the demand factor. If your not doing a significant quantity of business the cost (if you can get them manufactured) sky-rockets significantly. What would be an $8 part is now a $100 part. That can be as much profit as is on the laptop itself. From a business perspective that is definitely a non-trivial issue. Don't forget that these are low margin high cost items. There is an investment being made and labour costs. It could be significantly less than $100 after labour and other factors are factored in that are more non-trivial to factor. So I'm not really using the word profit well in this sentence..

I believe it's strictly harder than making a desktop computer with an
AMD processor and fully free coreboot. This is possible if not having
graphics, while it needs removing e.g. CPU microcode updates, IMC
firmware, SMU firmware, XHCI firmware, etc (this removes features and
adds bugs).

Graphics needs including and running nonfree VGA BIOS or replacing
AtomBIOS with free code (no one did it, it might be hard and is
board-specific, there is also no 3d without harder reverse engineering
and replacement of its microcode; NVIDIA GPUs too have VGA BIOS, I don't
know what's needed to replace it), or getting a PCI-E VIA GPU with no 3d
acceleration supported (which includes a VGA BIOS which isn't needed for
coreboot nor kernel or X drivers).

Laptops might be harder. I'm personally more optimistic about ARM,
while all ARM laptops that I know about have bootloader blobs and
nonfree wifi firmware.