Launch date for Librem 13 v5?

Hardware
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Hello Team,

When can we expect Librem 13 v5 to be launched? Also, would it be possible to share some of the new features and improvements that we might be see in hardware and OS both?

Thanks in advance,
Rutwick

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Hmm… good question, but you will hopefully understand that we can not publicly speak about this (yet) since this would significantly impact the sales of the current V4 models. What I can say though is that we are of course continuously further developing our products. Announcements will be made in time. But I can not, please forgive me, talk about any dates or plans here yet, I’m sorry.

Cheers
nicole

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Hi Nicole,

I surely do understand the reasons, no need to apologize. :slight_smile:

I sincerely hope we get -

  1. usb-c power adapter
  2. thin bezels
  3. 802.11 ac wifi
  4. better thermal cooling

Anyways, appreciate your prompt response and looking forward to the announcement.

Cheers,
Rutwick

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:slight_smile:

1.+2. are achievable.

With 3. we have the issue that we need to avoid WiFi chips that require a firmware at runtime. The current ones we use, the Atheros 9k, are the only mPCIe cards we are aware of that can work this way. Do you know others? The good news is that the WiFi sits on a M.2 card so if you are not happy with it you can easily replace the card against something else but then have to manually install the firmware blobs into /lib/firmware - which isn’t a big deal.

  1. what would be your goal or definition of such goal? Maybe we can get there but I would need to understand what your goal would be? ATM the current L13 and L15 are passively cooled as long as you do not put the CPU/GPU under load. For regular office work and most web browsing the fan stays off and the bottom plate of the case (and handrest) only get a little warm. I never had an issue with the L13 and L15 in this respect so far. If you have issues with this I can recommend:
  • run “top” and see if a rogue process is eating CPU resources
  • run “powertop” and go to the last page and tweak some or all options to “good” to reduce power consumption
  • verify that cpufreq ondemand governer is used to clock down the CPU

Cheers
nicole

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Inofficial hint: in the past, new models appeared roughly annually. I’d not expect v5 this year.

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Nicole,
What date can you talk about dates?
If you cant talk about that, what date can you talk about talking about dates?

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Ad infinitum, all those dates are the same date … an unknown date in the future.

With technology, it’s pretty simple. Everything you buy will be superseded fairly soon after you buy it, no matter what company you buy from, no matter what you buy. So you just have to make the decision as to whether the current offering is sufficiently attractive. (As is implied above, the fact that it will be superseded is a good thing, not a bad thing, because it means that there is continued investment in improvement.)

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@nicole.faerber thanks for the elaborate answer.

Isn’t is possible to get 802.11ac with Atheros? Sorry, I have limited networking knowledge. I was trying to install PureOS 8.0 on my Dell XPS 13 and I couldn’t see any wireless adapter; I am using Intel 8260 wifi card. I assume I need to install the firmware blobs into /lib/firmware as you mentioned to fix this. Can you help here to sort this out? Any link or steps would be much appreciated.

I don’t have any specific goal with thermal cooling as such, I just read a post where someone had overheating issues with his Librem v3, maybe that’s just one odd case. Glad to hear that you didn’t have any issues so far and it handles regular office work well. I am having terrible heating issues with my Dell XPS 13 ( i7, 6560U @2.20GHz) and the last thing I want to have in new machine is overheating.

However, thanks for sharing the debugging steps, I will definitely try them out.

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Yeah, I guess so, That’s why I am expecting it in the Q1 of 2020.

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Best to go here: Terrible WiFi performance with Librem13, Librem15 (the last few posts as at the time of writing)

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The AC Atheros cards, aka ATH10k, do require a firmware blob, that’s the issue.

For installing the firmware blobs for cards, links have been mentioned already…
Actually the latest are here:
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git

Concerning thermal, overheating should not occur. If it occurs then something is usually wrong, like clogged heat sink (depending on environment dust can collect in heat sink fins) or blocked air intake grill on the bottom. You should not use your laptop on a surface that may block the air intake (like on a bed, blanket etc.) and do CPU intense stuff - this will cause overheat quickly.

I am regularly doing big compile jobs (using all cores) on my Librem and have no issues. I now have seen some laptops that were returned to us with alleged overheat failures, yes. Most of them had a clogged heat sink - I have no idea where and how people use these laptops but some are almost too disgusting to even touch. Last time I had to wear rubber gloves - everything from top to bottom was sticky, stinking, worn out, bent and bruised - and the heat sink was full of lint and hairs! This poor thing was not able to breathe anymore, not amazing that it overheated.

So, if your laptop overheats check all parts of the air flow and make sure nothing blocks it, eventually open the bottom plate and loo at the gap between the fan and the heat sink (the end of the heat pipe) and also look into the heat sink’s fins. If there is lint and dust, remove it and it should be fine again.

Tunings through powertop will help to reduce runtime power consumption especially interesting when the device is sitting in idle. You can easily save several Watt (!) with toggling these which can also greatly improve battery run time with only little performance impact.

Cheers
nicole

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hold my laptop ! - cat : Miaaaau !

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thanks for the link and suggestions to tackle overheating, I will try them out and see if it helps. :slight_smile:

Cheers,
Rutwick

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If I were Librem, I would announce avaliability of the v5s at the same time I ammounced the L5 was ready to be shipped.

That way you could snag people who were getting a L5, but were on the fence about a new laptop.

So im guessing the laptop will be announced the same day the L5 shipps.

“prove me wrong”

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Fix any issues discovered with v4 to prove that we should not have to wait for a the new version every year
*Add things like VMware Workstation to the PureOS package manager (a youngster can dream but gnome boxes will likely have to do)

White or Silver Option (I really dislike Mate Black as it is a fingerprint magnet and I like bright shiny things. Perhaps red/green or yellow (lets get weird) *offer stickers to add character maybe?

Offer a mini PC option as no PureOS laptop owner should theoretically want to give up their secure beauty thus an alternate option. (I was eyeballing LibreTrend/ZaRealize and the Meerkat for these needs)

PureOS version of Bitlocker and/or use the USB module for login/logoff (ie an Evil made needs your usb key so don’t leave it in the PC when they are washing your underwear and make copies in case you lose things)

PureOS Docking Station with DDWRT wifi dongle to enable you to watch all the television no matter where you is… Docking station can help all of us kids that did not score Thunderbolt (even if it does fry your motherboard at times) but the type c capability is nice to have for all. Besides expansion bays, etc are always nice.

Left handed num pad for the odd kids and gamers…

Fan noise isolation after update(s) because Oh My right ?

Easier to remove software with unmet dependencies for Linux noobies like myself

privacy glass:I was able to buy this for my surface pro before getting converted and it was very helpful on flights near nosy neighbors…I suppose 15" things we can simply get from amazon is alright but I have yet to see this implemented by default (probably obvious reasons)

How to guide in the OS itself or a manual so that looking up answers to common issues does not require internet access

System76 is launching a 4k OLED display i9. There is likely no way to strip an i9 that fast so improving what we already have is crucial.

Include the $60 USB key being that the TPM kind of does nothing special without it.

Focus on lazy privacy/security with the option to learn what is going down.

OTP password service because you actually cannot trust password managers or your memory.

I do not think this crowd cares about bezels as much as being able to swap ram,network cards and drives.

You are in the privacy business…why not offer all the other fancy marketing products like Authentic8 where you have a virtual browser in the cloud powered by millions of AWS servers ?

But yes, come up with a mini pc solution because I am over laptops for a while after buying this one and turning all my other old windows laptops into various linux trial dummies.

Note:Ignore any odd tonality as I actually do like this laptop minus some bugs and improvements that could have saved me time.

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Some of your suggestions probably better belong here: Librem 15/13 v5 features and requests

and some of your suggestions probably better belong here: Your purism products wish list

I definitely endorse the suggestion of a “mini PC” (which would go in second link).