You can use an AMD GPU with the free xserver-xorg-video-radeon driver, but it requires proprietary microcode to enable hardware acceleration. Of course, Intel CPU also has proprietary microcode, so you already have that problem.
I think that the bigger issue is that Purism only has enough customers to justify making one model of laptop. System76 can offer multiple laptop models, because it is using Clevo base models, but Purism can’t because it is doing custom manufacturing of its motherboards and cases.
The problem is that Purism would have to force 80% of its customers to pay for a discrete GPU that they don’t need and has worse battery life than the integrated Intel graphics in order to cater to the 20% that want discrete graphics.
technically devkit schematics are in open, so anyone (with access to pcb and molding equipment) can produce something like pinebook based on it. The problem of course is - it will deliver same (or similar) performance as pinebook, while being at least 4 times more costly. Don’t think it will be a big success.
The pinebook pro i think will be exaclty same fast than the librem 15.
There is no problem with the battery life with a good gpu. On linux you can’t use both the intel gpu and the good gpu at the same time. System76 Notebooks you can choose witch gpu you want and the system will restart if you change.
I think the problem is that system76 is a small company. The librem 5 is now the main priority and that’s good. But believe me the librem notebooks are at this time not a great deal and they can do it better. I really sure there will be the same cpu like in the system76 notebooks with thunderbolt 3 in the librem 15/13v5
I think what you are missing in your repeated assertions that Purism hardware is overpriced is that Purism does a tremendous amount of software development, and all that software is made available for free. So how do you pay the software developers? You have to increase the sales price of the hardware, so that the extra money can go to paying employees.
If you just want the cheapest hardware you can buy, you can buy it from a company less committed to freedom.
All people say that the hardware is more modified than system 76 Coreboots notebooks. I can’t see so much improvement to other notebooks. So what is purism doing so special?
Purism has spearheaded a lot of development for mobile phones. The GNOME desktop environment and programs using the GTK library now have options for automatically scaling to adjust for smaller, phone-sized screens. That was pretty much all thanks to Purism.
To be fair, other projects (KDE, UBPorts) had also been working on similar things, but they targeted a different toolkit.
Purism has also done a pretty substantial amount of work in creating tools for dealing with the necessary operations required for the phone and writing device drivers and such. Additionally, Purism actually paid for reverse engineering a lot of the Intel Management engine. Unfortunately, they were so successful with that, that Intel asked them to remove a lot of the material they had published on it.
Paying a few dozen smart and talented people for several years takes a fair bit of money. It’s fair for Purism to charge more for their hardware to subsidize that. System76 definitely does the same, but they have been around longer and sell more products, meaning that each individual product can be a bit cheaper.
For what it’s worth, I still think System76 does good work. I bought their Thelio desktop, because I wanted to support their efforts, but damn did I pay a tremendous amount more than the individual components are worth - but that is because there are extra costs and efforts that the money from selling hardware has to go toward.
Thin Bezels, with the Retina displays on MacBooks anything with a bezel (particularly large ones) looks like it came out of the 1980s.
Nice trackpad, the existing one looks like a good size, a small touchpad sucks now with how useful they have become
Would be interesting to have an intel chipset with AMD integrated GPU, I think there were a series of these manufactured on an older generation of intel chips but not sure if there is additional manufacturing costs or risks associated with this that would not be offset by the value added. If it were equivalent to selecting an intel + intel HD or minimally more expensive than this option than an intel + AMD integrated GPU would be a good option. I think AMD’s integrated graphics were outperforming Intel’s equivalent if I recall.
USB C charging, maybe a combo USB C charge port that is also USB 3.1 and capable of connection to an external monitor and at least 2x additional USB ports
An ethernet port would be nice
Stick with the all-aluminum case or magnesium or something, definitely not plastic
Adding my voice to the requests for usb-c charging and DisplayPort over usb-c.
I own a Librem13v4 which I enjoy, but right now the lack of usb-c charging and display capabilities (or straight up Thunderbolt) is the only reason I cannot recommend the Librem laptops over the Dell XPS line to my coworkers running Linux. Having only 1 or 2 usb-c wires to hook up to your laptop when docking to your desk is just too convenient when you have to carry around your laptop for meetings even a few times a day.
I would definitely vote to NOT have dedicated graphics (AMD APU). The main distinction of Librems from other vendors is that they’re more or less blob-free and by bringing in dedicated graphics you’d need to sacrifice that as there are no dedicated gpu’s that work without closed blobs. At that point Librem is just like System76 and loses a LOT of its userbase that bought it for the express reason that they’re the most blob-free x86 laptop out there. If you want powerful graphics, buy a System76 or something else. Leave the Librem as open as possible.
As for my feature requests, in order of priority:
USB-C with Alt mode & charging for one-cable dock connection (should have support for 2FHD displays, USB3 and charging) - something like the Dell XPS has
keyboard without numpad
better WiFI range, 802.11ac 5Ghz. I wouldn’t mind losing the all-aluminium case and having a thicker plastic one if that meant better range.
1G ethernet port, see above
better cooling vent located at the side so it isn’t blocked if placed on a soft surface like couch or bed
I certainly am not advocating for dedicated graphics but perhaps a compromise position is that there is a slot for a graphics card and those who want it can use it (get a graphics card) and those who don’t can use the Intel integrated graphics.
As others have noted, it is possible to use a dedicated graphics card (nVidia or AMD) with an open source driver - and I listed some of the resultant challenges above.
Based on observations so far with the Librem 5 development, best to leave that for the time being. Not 4G and not 5G for now, in my opinion.
Definitely. Particularly on the Librem 15 where there should be more edge real estate.
Yeah, I meant 802.11ac (5Ghz). Though I’m aware that it may not be possible as the cards may need firmware blobs so they’d have to write their own firmware which would be a massive undertaking, if not impossible for their internal team, requiring manufacturer knowledge of the chip.
The open source drivers are just that - they require firmware too, which is still a binary blob if I’m not mistaken. A graphics slot would increase the cost substantially I think, plus there’s the output muxing that would need to be included on the main board in any case and the drivers to handle igp/egp switching. I don’t think Purism has the resources right now to do all that, given that they’re significantly behind schedule on the phone they probably have all hands on that. Certain bugs in PureOS are unfixed for more than a year, for example, and the software updates have ground to almost a halt, coreboot has a resume from suspend issue that’s an open bug still unfixed and there hasn’t been a coreboot update for months. I don’t think a new laptop with all these features will be out sooner than 2-3yrs.
People already do that with the WiFi though i.e. replace blob-free card with better performing blobbed card and install the blob themselves. It’s your computer. You are free to do that or not do that - however you prioritise things.
A slight difference between these two cases may however be that with an unverifiable PCIe card (graphics card) in your system, you cannot maintain integrity - whereas with an unverifiable USB device you can.
I’m not sure the antennas are made for 5GHz (dual band). If not, they’ll work very badly if at all at 5GHz. The factory antennas could be upgraded to dual band and the card left at 2.4GHz.
This is the most important feature I am waiting for. I do not even want to open the lid only to switch on and off the notebook (docks do have a button for that)
I expect that Purism will replace the Atheros Wi-FI/Bluetooth with Redpine Signals RS9116 in version 5 of the Librem 13/15, since that will fix its current problems with 802.11n and add Bluetooth.
For 802.11ac, I don’t think that we will ever see a solution that doesn’t require a binary blob in /lib/firmware.
I’ve been watching Purism with interest for a while. I thought I should add my own laptop wishlist, in no particular order, which is partially in agreement with that of other posters:
Price, at current levels, is not much of an issue. Take my money. Make me a laptop that doesn’t suck.
Fix bugs in PureOS. Linux distros for laptops aren’t exactly hot new technology. Safety and quality rule at this stage of their evolution. Most of them evolve from some new cool features, to bugs in those features, to even more bugs, to public disdain for a project which keeps introducing new features without fixing much of anything (like Ubuntu). Please don’t follow that path, if at all possible. If you never introduce another new software feature ever, so be it. While you’re at it, have a look at the million other open bug reports on other distros, and see if they apply to PureOS. Fuzz relentlessly.
I want UHD (4K) in a 13-inch matte screen. There’s a rumor going around that this takes a lot of power. But is that still true if we run it at 1080p for office work, then only move to UHD for video or gaming purposes? I think not. In any event, I’m willing to lose a bit of battery life in the quest for retinalistic resolution. 15 inches is OK, but not really ultraportable.
I should be able to connect an external monitor at UHD as well, and it should just work. (Maybe it already does.)
Thin? Lightweight is good, but I don’t care much. Just make something that works that I can lift with my nerd muscles.
Touchscreen? Sure, so long as you offer a matte nontouch option for those of us who want to see actual graphics instead of finger smudges and reflections.
More threads, more battery life. Maximum GHz is a stupid obsession that costs a lot and yields virtually nothing perceptible in terms of real world productivity. Beware Spectre and Hyperthreading. Kudos for removing the Intel SGX enclave shitshow.
I don’t want a GPU. But, OK, a GPU expansion slot (is that even feasible?) is fine with me, for those who like proprietary hardware that also happens to be intractably bugridden and incapable of proper power management. In my view, this isn’t a gaming machine or a neural network training machine. It’s a maximum security laptop. Want to play a game? Get an XBox. Want to train your neural net? Rent cloud TPUs.
Indicator LEDs on the bottom side of the machine. Do we really want LEDs (especially blue ones) lasering us in the face when we’re trying to watch a movie or get some sleep. No!
USBC charger, located in the rear so the laptop can be plugged in while standing on its side, so we can work or watch movies while lying down without wearing down the battery.
Hardware kill switches that don’t stick out and try to scratch everything that brushes against the laptop.
Single-port audio jack that’s physically connected (even glued, if need be) to the chassis, so we won’t get anymore of those mechanical failure reports after a few months. If it absolutely has to be dual-port because you can’t kill only the microphone on a single-port, then OK.
Case screws that never fall out, but can still be removed if necessary. Maybe dip them in caulk before screwing them in.
Toggleable, dimmable keyboard lighting. Make an easy control for this in the firmware setup, or in the OS if necessary (via a Fn key combo). Ideally with a minimally annoying color, like red or perhaps white. But better an unlit keyboard than a color-cycling psychedelic annoyance from hell that won’t shut off.
High dynamic range in screen brightness. Ultra-dim works great in dark rooms, and ultra-bright works great outside in the sun. Every laptop ever made seems to scale brightness linearly in response to the Fn key brightness controls. It should be scaled exponentially.
ECC memory, at least as an option. Reliability matters. RowHammer sucks. Enough said.
I don’t like bezels, but getting rid of it is a low priority.
People seem to want an ethernet port instead of more urgently needed USB or Thunderbolt ports. Seriously? A USB dongle won’t work? …OK, OK!
Rock solid wifi. If it’s up to 20% less max throughput than the competition, I don’t care. Make it safe.
Anodized aluminum or whatever other metal would be great. Yeah, plastic sucks, and it broadcasts bus transactions with less attenuation.
Battery is worth its weight. I believe 30K mAH is the max allowed for air travel purposes, but in any event, that value should be your ceiling. Ideally, we could choose to fill extra space with extra memory or extra battery or extra storage. Be creative here. Don’t create more base SKUs, but allow for customization.
is there such a thing as usb to pcie 4.0 pcb slot ? (x4 electric at minimum).
usb is serial and for portable/external ssd drives it does work quite well but it’s for m2 …
would it work for a GPU ? laptops with thunderbolt seem to be able to use dedicated external GPUs for high end gaming but at that point i’d be considering a desktop/workstation machine …
and for portable/external ssd drives it does work quite well but it’s for m2 …