Librem5 Hardware Update
puri.sm
puri.sm
We desperately need an open alternative that puts control back in the hands of the user. I think open computing is of fundamental importance. If we lose the ability to decide what code runs on our devices, we’ll be moving a step closer towards a totalitarian dystopia where the governments and corporations get to decide what’s good for us.
In most cases, you don't have to crack anything, you can officially unlock the bootloader and flash your own OS build.
Yes, you can't touch the early boot initialization, you're still required to use vendor blobs for using wireless/modem/camera/etc things, but you can control most of the software that matters.
Still, it's bizarre considering you can install Linux on any PC/laptop you buy.
The bigger issue of course, is that you can't just install Linux on a phone. They're all random pins soldered to random chips and all use patched to hell Kernels with binary blobs. Linux distros can release images that are designed on boot on x86/x86_64/PPC/Sparc and they'll booth up and install on most of those machines. That's impossible with nearly all Android/ARM devices.
PostmarketOS is trying to change that from the other direction, but Librem is a huge step in giving developers embedded hardware that doesn't require carefully modified and patched kernels/bootloaders.
Apple is trying to change that with their new T2-line of machines where you are effectively locked out of using the device’s storage if you try to boot a OS not blessed by Apple (like Linux).
You don’t own your new MacBook or Mac Mini.
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Apple-T2...
For a Mac Mini with external storage that may be passable, but for a laptop like the MacBook that’s pretty much a no go.
This move by Apple should not be confused with generic UEFI secure boot with user-loadable keys, which yes, IMO is a good thing for most people.
Apple however has locked down the hardware in a way which only benefits them.
This move is actually what everyone feared Microsoft would do with UEFI (which they didn’t) and literally caused endless FUD and uproar on the Internet (and it’s still going on).
Now that Apple is actually doing it nobody bats an eye, because Hey shiny!
TLDR: I don’t get people.
It is kinda not true. There are windows 2 in 1 and recent macbooks on which it is almost impossible to install linux.
That's FUD, and you know it. You can disable secure boot on Mac and boot whatever you want.
And apparently disabling secure boot still doesn't fix the issue -- see the Phronix updates[1]. I only found one article claiming you can get past over all the T2 "security" features[2], but they explicitly say (at the end of the article) that they haven't actually tested booting or installing Linux.
[1]: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Apple-T2... [2]: https://www.imore.com/no-apples-not-locking-you-out-linux-ma...
* Unless it's a 2018 Mac ( https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/11/06/apple_mac_linux_woe... )....
It's sort of theoretically useful whilst being practically pointless unless you want to produce your own OS.
How do I get into a Linux userland with X11 and a touch driver on my Galaxy Note 8? The answer is pretty much "write it all yourself, quickly before the hardware becomes obsolete".
I hope that the librem5 gains traction for that reason alone - producing a critical mass of developers.
There is place in the market for reggae and death-metal.
You couldn't PAY me to take an iOS device as a main personal phone.
(although as a caveat: I might consider owning one to test cross-platform mobile applications)
Xaiomi A1 and A2 come with stock android and official bootloader unlock on the website, takes 10 mins to unlock and install LineageOS. LineageOS root access is an option in the settings.
Another project which is taking on a similar challenge and is similarly open is the Dragonbox Pyra.
The Pyra is taking forever and it's pretty much a one-two men's team, which is why it takes so long I guess.
i imagine pcb layout becomes a much harder and more expensive problem at small sizes, not to mention most people wouldn't touch "only" a 720p display in 2019, even at a 4.6" display size (unfort), even if you told them it adds 30% battery life.
Lots of power, easy to handle, and I don't think about battery life ever. If they don't replace it, I'm just going to buy another. I was very sad to see they increased the screen size and resolution on the new models.
https://puri.sm/about/social-purpose/
More companies should follow this example.
Under what conditions can articles of incorporation be changed? Can't their investors force such a change? If so, it seems a large burden must be placed on choosing investors who are somehow legally bound under similar rules.
And what mechanism of enforcement exists? Presumably investor lawsuits are the main mechanism, which again puts a large burden on finding investors whose goals are not returns maximization. If this state statute specifies a distinct tax classification, perhaps there would then be state-level prosecutorial or administrative enforcement.
> The Corporation will release all software written by The Corporation under a free software license.
> The Corporation will release all hardware schematics authored by The Corporation under a free hardware license.
If you are talking about the IP blocks that are bought/licensed from third parties, then you are right, but I suppose that these are replaceable by equivalent blocks in future versions, without the user noticing. In other words, users don't depend on these blocks, so for all the user knows, these blocks are commodities.
And for things that might happen in future, I would leave them for future. Building hw takes time and proper dedication - all what I am saying is to be realistic towards current situation. The blocks are no commodities but some essential parts in today's use of smartphones. And no, things don't move that fast that you will just replace it.
If done right, things could finally go into right direction or at least have some new light on it.
Only the DDR4 memory training blob (which someone could eventually rewrite).
Is the idea that all of the software in the kernel to interface with these devices is open source?
I also don’t get the hangup over PCIe (vs USB). DMA with an IOMMU can be made fairly secure (and has obvious perf benefits).
I'm pretty sure no closed source software runs on the CPU. As for the hardware that depends on your definition. Hardware often has firmware in ROM. That you now feed that firmware on bootup instead of it being in ROM just allows you to update the firmware from the manufacturer. If that's running proprietary software depends on your definition.
There's also just more layers of security when using USB as opposed to a single layer with PCIe (IOMMU -- which is secure as far as I know but I'd prefer to be safe rather than sorry in this case).
Edit: it has a "radio hardware killswitch" ; so it's well designed.
I thought of the kill switch thing after commenting… eGPUs (necessarily) have the ability to be unplugged while running, but I think it was a lot of work on the part of the OSes to make that work well.
What’s the difference between a person and a cellphone?
A person only has two arms.
IIRC this is fine even under FSF "Respects your Freedom" rules
This doesn't match with my experience. Golden Week is a one-week holiday that gets you less than 5 days of vacation, because -- although companies are legally required to give Monday through Friday off -- the norm is to work on weekends around the holiday to make up for the lost time.
Does anyone have an idea what sort of Golden Week implementation Purism ran into? Why is it so different?
Is it just kind of known that things stop there for certain weeks? Or are these formally set out in schedules?
My only experience has been B2C, where the experience is generally {no response} -> {a week later: "Oh, everyone was on holiday"}
Maybe I’m alone but I wish I had more visibility into their progress. Might not be helpful for them though.
I don't have stats but I'm incredibly confident that almost no users want hardware switches.
Does your mum want a hardware switch? Does the guy working at Starbucks?
I think it might be the techheads who think that installing Linux and having hardware switches are normal - they're the ones who are out of touch with reality.
The problem with regular users is: they don't care until it's too late.
Can we blame them? Not really, because life is too diverse to worry about every consumer product.
It's good, however, if there is a bunch of good guys who do the thinking for these users. Still, most users may not care, but eventually consumer advocacy groups will pick this up, and they will educate users.
But it shouldn't be that way, should it? At least it's not what I learned during my marketing lessons. You do market research, listen to your potential customers, discuss the results and proceed based on that.
In the mobile world you have an absurd situation that you remove an important component of the device, you release the device, everybody tells you it was a very stupid decision, you ignore everybody and still rake a ton of cash. Amazing.
The thing is, if these things resulted in increased profit over the medium term, they'd probably have happened already.
So yes there's user-hostile decisions made that put profit over users. Like ad tracking.
But there's other things that I think convince a user to purchase a product, and purchase the next product from the same company (loyalty maintained) that may not be in the user's best interests.
An example is a larger battery. My current theory is a manufacturer could easily have a 2 day battery and it wouldn't make for a terribly unwieldy phone.
But they don't, because customers are going to buy the phone next to it that is sleeker and weighs less.
I think customers are more often than not short sighted when making decisions like this. When they're in the store they think "but this one's so much nicer, and the battery probably lasts enough"
I think purchases are often made emotionally, not rationally, and a phone with 7 extra switches and more weight or thickness just seems clunky and less "high tech"
How "incredibly confident" can you be about this claim without published stats?
I would like hardware switches ala Purism's laptops but I see that Hacker News prioritizes steering discussions away from these switches (such as down-moderating the grandparent post for making a similar claim with no pointer to evidence but leaving your evidenceless post relatively highly moderated). I'm not sure if other people would have thought about having such switches therefore I'm not sure if they would value them or even consider asking vendors to include such switches.
It's true I could be wrong, it might be something really unintuitive and for some reason people want hardware switches and I've just literally never heard it until now.
But in my experience 99% don't even know about, let alone care about advanced features. Even simple features you and I take for granted. They want to launch Instagram. That's about it.
You say this like it's a "gotcha," but what exactly could somebody with no technical knowledge do about the microphone? If you're trying to say that if there were an equivalent to electrical tape but for the microphone, people wouldn't use it, then I don't even think you honestly believe that.
Also, it's bizarre that in a world that ratting has existed, you'd compare covering the camera on your laptop with a piece of electrical tape to paranoid schizophrenia.
Take an old pair of wired headphones with mic, cut the cord off, plug in connector. There’s better solutions, but that’s the easiest if you are nervous.
> paranoid schizophrenia
I made no such comparison
In particular, your claim is false for phone and tablet cameras. These devices do not have visual indicators of camera operation. Furthermore, the only reason for an industry-wide adoption of laptop camera LEDs was consumer fear of them. If that fear erodes, there is no incentive to maintain the hardware feature and no governmental regulations governing such hardware.
Yet nobody seems to care about them (unless forced to care by their employer). The exact same folks I see in work environments with the tape on the Apple laptops are the same folks with nothing on the phones/tablets (and previously mentioned mics, where as at least on iOS you always have a visual indication of that). If you really care about privacy, you learn the different ways to protect yourself. If instead you have a different motive, you instead just grab a piece of tape and call it done.
I'm incredibly confident that almost everyone does. They'd explain it as the ability to turn off the microphone or camera without someone else having the ability to turn it back on without asking you, but it amounts to the same thing.
One thing I know nobody is asking for is microphones and cameras that can be turned on without their consent after they've explicitly turned them off.
Actually, she does. She read some news and put some tape over the camera of her notebook. Just as Zuck does - and I imagine there is an enormous gap in technical knowledge between the CEO of FB and my mum. So yes, maybe the demand is higher than the marketing departments are willing to admit. Apple's years-long reluctance to cater for people looking for a phone with two SIM card slots also comes to mind.
It's just generally been my experience that the vast majority of users don't care about privacy issues or "freedom" the way techies do.
The golden week is Japanese, not Chinese. Nothing closes in China at that time. And it’s in may/april.
Mangkhut did not really hit China mainland, it was already mainly just a storm when it reached mainland, and it died in 1/2 days once leaving the sea. I guess most of the factories are near Shenzhen, they should not have really suffered from Manghkut.
Just wanted to rectify that...
>The "National Day Golden Week" begins around 1 October.
>Three days of paid holiday are given, and the surrounding weekends are re-arranged so that workers in Chinese companies always have seven continuous days of holiday.
Would I buy again? Yes, for the ethos. Would I recommend it to a casual user (the intended audience)? No. It's still very much a techie device. If I push the power button and don't see desktop within a minute, that's broken. You need to be comfy at the command line to maneouver -- which I notice has been almost entirely convenienced away in Fedora 29. If Librems shipped F29, I could at least recommend it for my partner who is the definition of a casual computer user.
The only thing I miss actually is the 16x10 aspect ratio of the MBP, where the Librem like all other laptops I know of is 16x9.
Software-wise I've stuck to PureOS (which is Debian-based) despite temptations to install Arch or something. It's worked fine for me.
I am tired of subpar battery life being a de facto industry standard
Hardware perspective: CPU cooked itself because frequency regulation was accidentally turned off, time to wait for new parts from China + assembly.
It always amuses me how laisez faire folks are about things like ESD. "It's never caused a problem before" isn't a reason to ignore best practices and not work defensively.
It is if working defensively is costlier than replacing the odd broken part.
I wouldn't expect the same chip going into a smartphone to require a heatsink or any thermal consideration at all on a sparsely populated, open-air circuit board.