
Purism Aims to Build a Philosophically Pure Laptop - ogcricket
http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/23/purism-aims-to-build-a-philosophically-pure-laptop/
======
pingswept
This appears to be similar to the open source hardware Novena laptop
([https://www.crowdsupply.com/kosagi/novena-open-
laptop](https://www.crowdsupply.com/kosagi/novena-open-laptop)), but closed
source hardware.

From the Purism crowdfunding campaign: "The Librem 15 is the first high-end
laptop where you are in control and have complete visibility into the kernel,
the operating system, and all software."

It seems like the Novena came first and is substantially more free/open. A
laptop running all open source software is still good, but it's not as pure as
claimed.

~~~
dmicah
I'm interested if anyone has any insight into why there is a such a push for
"Free" software (for example by the FSF, Richard Stallman), but not also
"Free" hardware.

~~~
caboteria
From RMS himself:
[http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/1999062200505NWLF](http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/1999062200505NWLF)

From the linked article: "Because copying hardware is so hard, the question of
whether we're allowed to do it is not vitally important. I see no social
imperative for free hardware designs like the imperative for free software.
Freedom to copy software is an important right because it is easy now--any
computer user can do it. Freedom to copy hardware is not as important, because
copying hardware is hard to do. Present-day chip and board fabrication
technology resembles the printing press. Copying hardware is as difficult as
copying books was in the age of the printing press, or more so. So the ethical
issue of copying hardware is more like the ethical issue of copying books 50
years ago, than like the issue of copying software today."

~~~
cottonseed
I'm a little surprised and disappointed by this answer. It seems like all four
of Stallman's four essential freedoms of free software apply to hardware: to
use as you wish, to study and modify, to distribute, and to distribute
modifications [0]. Only the freedom to distribute is mitigated by the cost of
copying hardware. The others all seem like an active battleground for end-user
freedoms, and the freedom to distribute will be more important as both design
tools and fabrication technologies become cheaper.

[0] [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-
sw.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html)

------
pmontra
Partially offtopic, but looking at the case of that laptop I wondered if I am
the only one that slides them to the right to have the touchpad and the
spacebar aligned with the central symmetry axis of my body? That means having
2/3 of the screen to the right of my eyes, which is a waste because I end up
piling windows with important information to the left, for not having to tilt
my head to the right.

I believe that the reason for that (IMHO) ergonomically poor design is the
will to include the numberpad. With the exception of Macs it's difficult to
find any 15+" laptop without a numberpad. Is that feature so important? My
numberpad lies there unused since I bought my zbook 15 one year ago. Maybe if
I were playing games I would find a use for it. I write specs or code, so
there are no many numbers I must type and it's easier to reach for them on the
row above the letter keys.

How about optional cases without a number pad and centered keyboard and
touchpad? I'd pay an extra for that (plus another extra for a 16:10 screen,
but that another story). Or maybe people wanting a number pad should pay an
extra. I wonder what are the numbers for the two groups of people "I must have
a number pad" and "I don't use it".

~~~
johnchristopher
Every non-programmer/IT person I know want a `numberpad`. It's really easier
for them to type numbers and when they happen to use my laptop and have to
type numbers they really struggle with the shift keys.

~~~
stegosaurus
Shift keys?

Which keyboard layout is this? I've used a few and always had 1-0 directly on
keys.

I personally find number pads infuriating; I just don't really get it. It
seems like something of very limited application, useful for only those who
spend hours per day inputting numbers solidly and not much else. What's the
use case? It seems like that amount of manual data entry would be slowed down
by error checking much more so than the input stage.

~~~
pmontra
The old Italian keyboard (last seen in the 80s) was like that. It was qzerty
too. Numbers moved to the unshifted position and Z and W swapped place.

From what I see at
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout)
there are very few keyboard like that now. I'd go with a number pad myself if
I had to use one of them. On the bright side, if the US keyboard had shifted
numbers the keys !"£$%&/()=?^ won't be shifted and a programmer might actually
be using them more than numbers.

~~~
johnchristopher
Funny thing is that some of the keys `!"£$%&/()=?^` still require some shift
or dead-keys combination with the french/belgian layout (and the french
belgian and french layout differ slightly as well).

------
asb
You may also be interested in a project a number of us have been working
called lowRISC, aiming to produce a fully open-source SoC in volume using the
RISC-V instruction set architecture.
[http://www.lowrisc.org/](http://www.lowrisc.org/)

I'm giving a main track talk on it at FOSDEM next weekend:
[https://fosdem.org/2015/schedule/event/lowrisc/](https://fosdem.org/2015/schedule/event/lowrisc/)
so say hi if you're there. My speaker interview gives more background on the
project and our motivations [https://fosdem.org/2015/interviews/2015-alex-
bradbury/](https://fosdem.org/2015/interviews/2015-alex-bradbury/)

~~~
aidenn0
I haven't looked at RISC-V much; a quick glance at the ISA spec makes me think
it has 32 GPRs? That is nice to see, as with Power slowly fading and Sparc
essentially dead, we are stuck with the somewhat more constrained x86-64 and
ARM.

SBCL, for example, uses 2 stacks in its precise GC, as it will use one stack
for unboxed integers and calling out to C, and another for lisp objects, which
should be the roots for the GC; on x86-64 it uses a conservative GC for this
reason (on ARM they implemented the precise one, but seem to be losing
significant performace due to register pressure).

In general 16 registers seems to be "just barely enough" most of the time,
which translates to "super painful" the few times you could use more.

~~~
hga
Yep, it's got 32 GPRs, with #0 hardwired to the constant 0.

And the lowRISC project is looking into adding two tag bits with a focus on
practical security for languages like C, but with the ability to use them for
things like GC.

Largest nits I see about the RISC-V ISA is no support for integer math error
checking aside from divide by zero (a New Jersey design), and per a slide set
I found for the January workshop, the work in progress 64 bit VMM mode will
only support 43 bits of address space, i.e. "only" 8 TiB, vs. e.g. the 256 TiB
of x86-64. Which of course is rather a lot, but I find it uncomfortably close
to the DRAM you can put on current systems with Intel CPUs; I've watched this
game way too many time in my career.

~~~
aidenn0
The 43-bits; is that a limitation on physical or virtual addresses?

Also, don't forget that DRAM isn't the only consumer of physical address
space.

~~~
hga
It's from a slide set, the first draft of RISC-V's "Privileged ISA
Specification" is still being worked on before initial release, which is
supposed to happen RSN.

I'm assuming it's the virtual address space limit.

------
adamnemecek
I'm surprised no one has said this yet but I can testify that a numpad
keyboard on a laptop is like the worst ergonomic design that is somehow
currently still popular. It's one of the things where I literally cannot
comprehend how someone would think that it is ok.

~~~
jsprogrammer
How is it any worse than the rest of the keyboard, in terms of ergonomics?

~~~
adamnemecek
I just found this which says exactly what my thoughts are

[http://ramblingfoo.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-stupidest-
trend-...](http://ramblingfoo.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-stupidest-trend-in-
laptop-design-is.html)

~~~
yoklov
That's a fairly compelling argument, but I definitely have had times where I
wished for a numpad on my Macbook, mainly so that I could play games that
required them (I went through a few months where I played through several
traditional roguelikes, and this isn't uncommon in that genre, though vikeys
is more common and far better IMO).

~~~
gerbal
Fortunately, there are lots of hardware solutions to that problem.

[http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&De...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&Description=keypad)

------
yzzxy
On a similar note, I've recently become very interested in buying a Lemote
laptop. It's exactly the tiny form factor I'm looking, runs an open MIPS chip,
and comes preinstalled with some version of Linux, though I'd probably load
Gentoo as it's said to work quite well. The various models run $150-300 in USD
depending on the supplier, from what I can tell.

Unfortunately it's very hard to buy these computers in the US, and I will
probably have to pick it up on some future trip to China. I would definitely a
Massdrop or crowdfunding campaign to send purchase a set from the Chinese
distributor.

~~~
dmm
The Lemote Yeelong is very slow, comparable to the 1.6GHz atom netbooks of
2008. You'd be better off with a thinkpad x60 with libreboot installed.

~~~
yzzxy
It's the novelty I'm interested in. It will be 99% used as mobile keyboard
feeding into vi.

~~~
dmm
For that purpose it would serve fine. You could try and contact the person at
kd85.com. They formerly sold lemotes and maybe have a few laying around.

------
delinka
"...uncontrolled by outside forces..."

Who validates the silicon and how is this accomplished? We've known for quite
some time about the potential for rogue circuits hiding amongst the millions
of transistors.

~~~
joezydeco
Especially that 500GB HDD. What open-source firmware is loaded onto that?

~~~
yueri
From the website: "There are also hardware components, like the HD or SSD,
that are flashable, and therefore upgradeable, but that currently run firmware
that is not yet freed. We are working to get freed versions of this firmware!
Being the first manufacturer to care about freedom and privacy, we are making
a lot of progress upstream."

~~~
ansible
I am skeptical they are going to get firmware for the hard drive. It would be
easier to make your own SSD from nand flash chips and write your own firmware.

------
BrainInAJar
What CPU is it running? Because last time I checked the Intel microcode wasn't
open source

~~~
serf
an i7, which while proprietary doesn't necessarily have to be bundled with the
typical Intel AMT, which the FSF dislikes[1].

Besides the CPU, it contains proprietary nVidia chips. Another company which
doesn't have too stellar of a 'open' record.

[1]: [https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/active-management-
techno...](https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/active-management-technology)

~~~
minthd
The chip this uses , the i7-4770HQ , uses vt-d. According to invisible
labs[1], vt-d can allow certain malware attacks. Afaik, even after being
informed of this by invisible labs researchers, intel did nothing(afaik) to
solve this.

[1][http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.co.il/2011/05/following-w...](http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.co.il/2011/05/following-
white-rabbit-software-attacks.html)

~~~
walterbell
It was mitigated in software and fixed in post-2011 hardware,
[http://xen.1045712.n5.nabble.com/Xen-security-advisory-
CVE-2...](http://xen.1045712.n5.nabble.com/Xen-security-advisory-
CVE-2011-1898-VT-d-PCI-passthrough-MSI-td4390298.html)

------
stephen-mw
I'm excited about a company that will ensure a good, compatible experience
with linux on a laptop. I develop on mac osx and linux vms (vagrant). I want
to move to linux but the linux desktop experience just isn't there yet.

~~~
javert
For me, the linux desktop experience _is_ there. So I guess it depends on what
you want.

There's nothing I want to do I can't do on Linux as well or better, except
play games, and that's not enough of a factor for me to not prefer Linux.

~~~
rtpg
From my testing, the macbook air is one of the better laptops on the market
now in terms of battery life and general feel (the touchpad is second to none
in my opinion).

But even for a laptop this prevalent, getting it to work with Ubuntu is a
pain, and you run into a bunch of little bugs consistently.

I understand that it's a major uphill battle, but over the many many laptops
I've tried to use with Linux, I've not found one that offers a good experience
when it comes to the things that are important to a laptop (like battery life,
secondary display support, and the like).

I'm totally cool with using Linux on a desktop (though I don't own a desktop
anymore), had some great experiences even when going full Arch.

~~~
chucksmash
I've been happily plugging away with Ubuntu on a Thinkpad T530 for a while now
and an old Dell w/ an Intel Core 2 Duo for years before that. Both installs
went smoothly.

The hassle involved in getting Ubuntu working on a MacBook is not
representative of laptop installations in general. Macs are special beasts and
looking at the relevant support wiki page there are all sorts of hoops that I
just didn't have to jump through in either of my non-Mac installations. I'm
sorry you had a poor experience!

~~~
rtpg
I've had some Dell and HP laptops (and a super old thinkpad, but that one
worked alright given it couldn't really do much), and have had extremely bad
driver issues. The big one has been the graphics card, but also flaky wifi,
and even sound card issues! Battery life was always an issue (I would have 4
hours on windows, only an hour and change on linux), but I think that was
linked to graphics card issues.

Having issues with a sound card gives me flashback to windows 95.

------
superuser2
A truly philosophically pure laptop would, among other things, guarantee
absolutely no involvement of slave labor/abusive practices in its supply
chain. Everyone from the mines to the assembly plant to the retail store would
have secure, middle-class employment. Revenue would not fund political
corruption or violence related to labor, natural resources, or environmental
impact.

But it would not contain binary blobs either, so this is a positive step. The
branding is a little grandiose for the extent of its "philosophical purity,"
though.

~~~
orblivion
Depends what philosophy you're talking about.

------
zkanda
Wow, that price is not justifiable, the spec at System76[0] is way better and
cheaper.

0\. [http://www.amazon.com/System76-Galago-Ultrapro-
Processor-120...](http://www.amazon.com/System76-Galago-Ultrapro-
Processor-120GB/dp/B00QQOU5FY/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1422112938&sr=1-1&keywords=System76&pebp=1422112964036&peasin=B00QQOU5FY)

~~~
quadrangle
I beg to differ. (I'm unaffiliated and haven't donated btw). The Purism
project is not directly comparable. They are doing substantial extra work and
hassle and working with different parts. It's not about whether the machine
runs a fully-free OS (System 76 running Ubuntu isn't even fully-free as Ubuntu
isn't fully-free). It's about even the basic hardware drivers, BIOS, firmware
etc. all being free/libre and the extra cost is covering the hassle and
specifics of making that happen in the real world today.

------
ansible
So what about this company? What is their reputation? I'm in the market for a
Linux laptop with about those specs, but how can I easily compare this to a
more established brand in terms of after sales support and overall build
quality?

------
conductor
Add hardware switches for the mic, webcam, lan, wifi and bluetooth and you
have my money.

~~~
dmm
[https://www.crowdsupply.com/purism/librem-
laptop/updates/lib...](https://www.crowdsupply.com/purism/librem-
laptop/updates/librem-13-and-more)

Your wish is granted.

------
oconnore
How do they do Wi-Fi? Bluetooth?

~~~
rosser
Bluetooth isn't mentioned on the campaign page [1], but the wifi is ath9k.

[1] [https://www.crowdsupply.com/purism/librem-
laptop](https://www.crowdsupply.com/purism/librem-laptop)

~~~
david-given
Last I heard, radio firmware pretty much had to be locked down or the
regulators wouldn't certify you; the principle here being that as all modern
radio chipsets are basically software-defined radios, they're
indistinguishable from incredibly effective jammers. They consider the right
to dial emergency services on a cell phone and have it work to be more
important than the right to play with hardware.

So I'm interested to see that there's actual open source firmware for the
ath9k, and it looks like the hardware will accept unsigned firmware images.
Have the rules changed? Or are the regulators simply less concerned about wifi
relative to mobile phone radios?

~~~
bvttf
Long answer: [http://youtu.be/WOcYTqoSQ68](http://youtu.be/WOcYTqoSQ68) Short
answer, iirc the atheros will usually play within the rules, and the free
drivers aren't super officially supported so what those crazy hackers do isn't
so much their responsibility.

But that's based on half-remembering that talk, which I watched five months
ago.

------
pmalynin
For that price the components seems rather inadequate. 4GiB RAM for $1800?
Come on.

~~~
john2x
Yeah. It doesn't even come with cake!

------
unicornporn
So, does it really offer something that this doesn't:
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GIVX0FM/](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GIVX0FM/)
?

Except for silver casing...

~~~
lukasm
It doesn't have SSD, so in my book it's not high performance(a bit too big as
well).

IIRC Ubuntu sends some analytics data. There is no guarantee about the rest.

------
knappador
The future of anything we wish was built out of philosophical purism is to be
built on crowdfunding.

As for this particular case, SSD > liberty for me. I'd rather boot at a
reasonable speed than die waiting to copy files.

------
davidw
This looks pretty cool to me. I've been happy with the Ubuntu/Dell efforts
over the years, but it's really, really good to see people working on nice
Linux machines.

------
Morphling
They talk about ensuring that open source works on the machine, anyone else
concerned if they will try to inhibit close source software? Like this whole
shitstorm around GCC?

~~~
TelmoMenezes
“absolutely free and open and uncontrolled by outside forces ensures complete
control of every aspect of the hardware at all times.”

------
netvarun
The 10^6$ question is whether Richard Stallman[1] would use this?

[1][http://richard.stallman.usesthis.com/](http://richard.stallman.usesthis.com/)

~~~
w1ntermute
That's a bit outdated - Stallman's now using a ThinkPad X60:
[https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html](https://stallman.org/stallman-
computing.html)

OT, but an amusing line from that page:

> I never pay for anything on the Web. Anything on the net that requires
> payment, I don't do.

Or more succintly:

> Out, out, damned Spotify! Flick off, Netflix!

~~~
pconner
It would be pretty hard to run netflix in emacs anyway

~~~
serf
don't say things like that out loud. the emacs repos are already too crowded.
we'll have a _netflix-mode_ by sun-up.

~~~
Retra
I wouldn't worry too much, as there isn't a netflix-mode-by-sun-up-mode, as
far as I can tell.

------
coned88
Can somebody explain the intel processor freedom thing. They say this is the
first intel processor that doesn't rely on a signed bios.

------
r0s
Call me a skeptic, but there's nothing philosophically "pure" about a locked
down hardware platform where discrete components are all dependent on each
other and NOT user serviceable.

------
robinho364
Stallman, I remember that he used a Loongson computer

~~~
robinho364
Well, currently he is using Thinkpad x60. By the way, I dislike the style of
his personal website, which is disordered and primitive.

------
sebnap
Start purism by removing the numpad ...

------
enupten
I wish it was more Thinkpad-y rather than Macbook-y; especially since Lenovo
-I've heard- is well on its way to ruining the former.

~~~
bla2
The newest Carbon X1 looks pretty good, at least compared to the previous
model.

~~~
TheCowboy
It would be nice if Lenovo provided the option of the classic Thinkpad
keyboard. I'm considering going with a used Thinkpad as my next laptop for
that reason.

Laptop choice seems to have become a monoculture of Apple clones. If Purism
would provide that keyboard option I would find it hard to resist.

~~~
walterbell
Goldtouch (derived from Lexmark/IBM aesthetics) makes ergo keyboards and has
mobile (foldable) USB and BT versions,
[http://allthingsergo.com/blog/reviews/goldtouch-keyboard-
rev...](http://allthingsergo.com/blog/reviews/goldtouch-keyboard-review/)

------
sarciszewski
Nearly $2000 for a laptop I could have bought for that price in early 2008?

Sorry, call me a stickler, but I just don't see the value here.

~~~
keithpeter
Fine, if you don't perceive value, then you are not part of the target market
for this product/project. Enjoy your current choice of hardware and software.

Other people may see value where you do not however.

~~~
sarciszewski
4 GB of RAM and 500 GB HDD sounds like a hand-me-down I'd get from my grandma,
not a new cutting edge laptop. What exactly justifies that cost?

~~~
keithpeter
I'm typing this on a Georgian reproduction then :-)

Thinkpad X61s with 2.5Gb RAM and 100Gb hard drive. Runs Kubuntu 15.04 alpha
very responsively (with baloo working) and allows me to complete
office/planning type tasks.

------
javert
A good idea but tainted by association with Stallman and therefore with
Stallman's made-up, non-empirical, false morality.

