
Ask HN: PRISM-free laptops? - hellcow
I&#x27;m in the market for a high-end laptop running Linux, but after several days of searching, I haven&#x27;t found anything that fits my criteria.<p>The ideal laptop will have:<p><pre><code>  - No PRISM affiliation (No Windows or Mac pre-installed)
  - Strong basics (great keyboard, touchpad, 6+ hours of battery life,
    HD+ resolution)
  - Good support for Arch Linux or Debian out of the box
    or with easy setup
  - Nvidia GPU
  - Haswell i5 or i7
  - 256GB SSD or SSD+HD combo
  - 8GB+ RAM
  - 13-15&quot; screen, lightweight
  - Great customer service
  - No optical drive
</code></pre>
Edit: Preferably with a removable battery and without a built-in webcam&#x2F;microphone.
======
DanBC
Item one is baffling. You use the Internet - whatever you do is cached by
numerous parties, and the NSA will be one of those parties, no matter what the
OS is. It sucks that machines come with an OS pre-installed, that you have to
pay for that OS, and that the OS often has really lousy additions to it.
Buying a clean copy of the OS is often more expensive. But, whatever machine
you buy, it's normally possible to get a different OS on their. Be careful
about some of the more obscure tablets and mini pcs which might have an odd
ARM processor with minimal support.

I'd be interested to see what people recommend though. It sounds like a nice
machine.

There's probably a market for a good developer / professional machine.
Chromebook Pixel is lovely, but only has 4 GB RAM. People say that Lenovo
Thinkpad T Series lost touch with the market. MacBook Pro has a lot of
respect, but they have some weirdnesses too.

~~~
hellcow
It's about boycotting companies that are eagerly cooperating with the
government to spy on hundreds of millions of innocent Americans.

Chromebook Pixel is made by Google—again, PRISM.

~~~
DanBC
Yes yes, I know it's about boycotting those companies.

Accepting the fact that someone only cares about PRISM and similar government
spying: All companies are involved.

You can claim the OS money back, sometimes. I don't know if anyone ever
actually did that, or if it's still something that people can do.

So, even if the machine has a bad OS pre-installed you can remove it and
reclaim the money. OR there are a few hardware makers who sell machines with
Linux pre-installed.

But, assuming the boycott is strong: What if those hardware makers also sell
to governments? Do you add those makers to the boycott?

And, once you have the hardware: Where do you get Internet connectivity from?
Because all those companies are happy to roll over and give the government
data.

------
driverdan
Closest I can think of off the top of my head is
[http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd](http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd)

No discreet video though.

~~~
hellcow
Unfortunately that is a huge point, since I need to program using Nvidia
cards.

------
gee_totes
Just make sure the laptop has a hardware off/on switch for the wireless card.
Then flip the switch to "off" for PRISM-free mode.

/snark

------
rayj
Why a Nvidia GPU? That would require using Nvidias binary blob, or the
unstable open-source driver. You could go full-RMS
[http://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html](http://stallman.org/stallman-
computing.html)

~~~
hellcow
I've been doing work in OpenCV lately which really only has good support for
Nvidia.

------
mtgx
If you're worried about this then I wouldn't trust any "pre-installed" OS on
these machines, whether it's Linux or not. Get a machine and install Linux on
your own, and it's probably best to use open source drivers for it.

~~~
hellcow
I'm not opposed to this, but buying a machine with Windows pre-installed means
that Microsoft gets paid. I want to avoid that.

~~~
krapp
You could try to find one used. Microsoft still gets paid but at least not by
you. Also no customer service I guess...

Also it occurs to me that you could possibly buy a laptop without a hard
drive, then a blank hard drive, boot linux from a thumb drive and install that
way. You would still have to luck out on matching the hardware specs and
everything though.

Also also it occurs to me that that might be a viable service right now, for
someone who has money to burn.

------
MisterWebz
On a slightly related note, how can we detect backdoors implemented on the
physical level?

------
MostAwesomeDude
You can't.

No, seriously, you won't find a video card (especially an nVidia) that doesn't
have a cross-licensing agreement with Microsoft for the use of certain
patented codecs. Whatever you buy, there's gonna be a small amount of cash
going to Microsoft. Sorry.

Have you considered being less indignant and working to encourage other people
to be more aware of the security of their data?

