Free Software Foundation's 2012 Holiday Giving Guide
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If you haven't checked it out yet do so now!
ThinkPenguin's featured in it as well as Trisquel :)
Check it out:
Nice! I wish people I knew were into Free Software.
I was just thinking, the eBook suggestion - one nice gift would be to carefully search Gutenberg and other genuine free repositories and create a selection for the giftee, in the right format for their reader, and put it on an SD card or stick.
You could also create a collection of public domain/creative commons images (search by license; the Library of Congress has some amazing things).
Interesting how they compare a TP laptop to a top of the line MacBook Pro. I know the OS gives the user freedom in comparison to Mac, but is the build even close between the two. The Mac has a retina display.
A lot of people (non-gamers) don't need anything better than a ThinkPenguin laptop anyway.
I don't doubt that the Mac computers are high-quality though. But the FSF does make a point: you can't change the hardware in a Mac at all. They expect you to upgrade if you want better specs.
Another non-freedom related point to make is that Macs are ridiculously expensive. I personally wouldn't spend > $800 on a laptop.
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Why does everyone think that Apple's products are top quality and ThinkPenguin's are crap? Do we need to eliminate the low spec'd options? The quality of the builds is comparable to Lenovo and Apple. They are not consumer grade even though we make the hardware available with lower performance CPUs and ram configurations. We offer top tier SSD drives and other features not found in typical retail consumer grade systems too plus matte screen options.
There are certain things we don't offer although it tends to be due to DRM issues and nothing to do with build quality. The systems are far from being dated and do support 3rd generation Intel CPUs and more.
I'm amazed at how much price impacts peoples perception. You can have identical products from two different companies and the less known company has a 4-5 point difference (78 vs 83 for instance out of 100).
We are even offering "Ultrabooks" (which meet certification requirements although are not certified).
Maybe it has to do with not offering ATI or NVIDIA graphics. That has everything to do with quality. NVIDIA and ATI are no where near as well supported from an ease of use perspective as Intel graphics. However this is a non-free software issue as well as a usability issue.
“Better” is a relative term to your goals with a system. If your looking for the best performance for typical activities for which the masses are after our systems are by far the best option on the market. If your looking for gaming they may not be. Gaming though isn't everything. And certainly not something GNU/Linux is known for. Why would we even care when hard core gamers are not flocking to the operating system?
> Why does everyone think that Apple's products are top quality and ThinkPenguin's are crap?
Sorry if it seems like my last post was suggesting that. I re-read what I wrote and I feel a little bit bad now.
I had a look at some of the TP computers and they are a *lot* cheaper than Macs I've seen in shopping centres. I love the idea of a wireless card that works as well. ;)
> Do we need to eliminate the low spec'd options?
No, please don't. :) I definitely wouldn't spend extra money on a faster CPU.
But I think maybe having more pre-made configurations on your site might be useful for some people, because there are only three laptops on your site at the moment. For example, have a higher-spec Royal Penguin with a Matte screen, 4GB, 320GB HDD (or maybe an SSD). Obviously that configuration is already do-able, but people looking for a high-spec computer would notice it immediately.
My original comment should have looked something like this:
> Most people don't need a "high-spec" computer, especially if they're just doing word processing, emailing, etc.
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This has actually crossed my mind for other reasons. Cost cutting measures and speed of delivery. However we are pretty fast to ship. Definitely faster than anybody else with custom configurations. It might still be worth having "ready to ship" models. Not sure how well they would sell compared to the customizable models. I suppose we could try it.
I apologize if you felt this was an attack on you. It is not. It is just peoples perception. It is something we need to work on (the perception- not the quality). There aren't many good reviews and I'll admit there is more work to be done. I'm satisfied with 99% of our product line at this point in terms of the quality being good to excellent. I'm satisfied we have resolved all concerns with the laptops. They work well both in GNU/Linux and the quality!
Now to find some people who are better than incompetent to review the things or have some particular objective or idea of what a computer should have/be (unfortunately most reviewers and reporters are really bad- and yes- I have lots of experience with it in a past life).
:)
I suppose most GNU/Linux users - especially those who actively pursue more free hardware - are probably more interested in good basic solidity and functionality, but I am also very keen on aesthetics - good quality finishes. And keyboards. (I mostly like Lenovo and Alienware keyboards - I hate the flat 'chicklets' that they put on most laptops, they are horrible for touch-typing.)
It all depends on preference. I used flat laptop keyboards for over five years and never minded them.
I now connect a separate keyboard/mouse and raise my laptop on a stand, which is better for my posture. But I will happily use a flat keyboard when I need to.
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Unfortunately that is the trend. I believe you can put the blame on Apple for that one. Unfortunately lots of trends are horrible where usability is concerned. I realy would wish everybody would stop copying each oher. Maybe then we would have some decent options. There are really limited set of designs for any generation. You can only deviate so much. It is freequently costly to do so too.
Maybe it's related the brand perception?
Anyway I think that newer apple computers seem to be really a pain under GNU/Linux, for instance according to the reverse engineering needed and done by people like Mathew Garret, so better avoid them like the plague.
In the other hand there are companies like ThinkPenguin that sell laptops that work well with free software distributions like trisquel...
About gaming, many free software games do require 3d, but not all requires that powerfull graphic cards: some games are playable on really low end hardware, so a more powerfull system like think penguin's will probably be OK for some games:
for instance on way older systems such as core 2 duo + intel graphics cards I can run games such as supertuxkart, and maybe games like Xonotic and the tremulous successor work, I should check.
I don't think that there are a lot of free software games that require a that powerful graphic card
And there are also other similar companies that sell laptops with Nvidia graphic cards...
Personally I bought my laptop(core i7, used for compiling) some years ago and I've now issues because I didn't bought it from free software friendly companies:
-> suspend to ram don't work
-> sometimes it fails to boot, I've to power it off and restart the boot from scratch
-> no 3D acceleration(ATI)
Apart that Wifi works since it has an ath9k(hopefully...)
I've also an x60 with coreboot...and 3d acceleration,however I need to buy an internal wifi card for it,because I fear that having 2 wifi cards makes the battery life worse.
Denis.
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There are lots of games you can play. That isn't really what the issue is with that market. The majority in that market *insist* on having the most powerful graphics chipsets available. It doesn't really matter if it doesn't benefit them. Now it is a market that tends to be able to take advantage of the graphics card and while the Intel graphics chipset is comparable to low end nVidia these are not the graphics chipsets any serious gamer is going to get a system with. On the other hand the masses are very likely to get such a card and that is our market. The majority don't game though anyway. This idea that GNU/Linux is being held back by a lack of games is an exaggeration. That segment of the market is probably significantly smaller than the population for which GNU/Linux is currently a viable option.
What we need is to hit the segment of the market where it is currently viable to switch over today. We haven't even hit a tiny itty fraction of this viable market. The products and services available aren't up to task to handle the viable market. It is barely able to support the current user base. We are moving forward though and I'm content with where things are for the moment.
The one thing I have to say is we seem to have the 3d acceleration, wifi, sound, power management (suspend to ram, etc), and general support for the feature set pretty well down pat.
The one thing I have to say is we seem to have the 3d acceleration, wifi, sound, power management (suspend to ram, etc), and general support for the feature set on all our products pretty well down pat. Our hardware does generally work out of the box with at least recent distributions so ease of use is covered. It's not perfect when half your customers need a lot of support and are technically challenged.. but for now things are "good enough". Which is all we can really hope for given the amount of work and limited resources available for the time being. We do need to work on better documentation amongst many other things. Particularly as things move forward and less and less of our customers are technically savvy. Not everybody who opens up a computer has done so before so assuming one knows not to have the system on we are ok, However even now half our customer base might not realize that. It should be mentioned in an instruction pamphlet of some sort.
name at domain writes:
> Why does everyone think that Apple's products are top quality and
> ThinkPenguin's are crap?
Nice one! I laughed. Although I do not own ThinkPenguin or Apple
hardware, for me personally it is the other way around. Apple's devices
are crap for two reasons. One, they are designed in mind and shipped
with proprietary software and it is not certain is it going to work with
free OS, although some work. Two, I consider Apple's hardware
ridiculously overpriced. At least it was this way in the past, I haven't
checked lately.
I think it is all related to marketing and branding. After all Apple is
a well recognisable and marketed brand, which is the reason it is so
popular. The fact that all (most?) hardware is similar inside or at
least produced in the same factories in Asia, does not occur to
people. It also could be that ThinkPenguin is not yet (?) recognisable,
and people see it as a second class product. Just because they haven't
heard of it, or they are not familiar enough with it. Hope my thoughts
help somehow.
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I'm sure your right. It doesn't help we need to work on our internal marketing. As people have pointed out many a times the site needs better pictures and an overhaul. We are working on that.
We have support for multiple languages, currencies, and regions now implemented. We still have a lot left to do although the main development aspects are coming to a close. We still need to do some theming work, setup some business rules, do some marketing stuff (better pictures), and then populate the catlog.
Why is the link to http://thinkpenguin.com instead of http://libre.thinkpenguin.com that exclusively promotes free software? Is it a typo?
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I actually talked to Zak (the new campaigns manager) on the phone about it. I was suppose to send him an email with pictures and everything. After the guide came out I looked back and noticed the email didn't get through to him though. He must have forgot. It was a bit rushed I think.
Not to worry though! I already emailed him about it. Next year they need to include http://www.eztakes.com/ too. Pointing to Project Gutenberg was a good idea although I think a better guide needs to be put together for entertainment. I'd probably do it although I'm not 100% certain what would be acceptable (I'm sure it would be within FSF guidelines although I'm not sure what would be acceptable given other issues of copyright).
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