there are plenty of ways to get yourself locked-in if the graphics side is a problem …
#locked-in-my-own-graphics-universe 
I really like the option to have both a 2.5" and M.2 drive in a laptop. I also want a laptop which is easy to open and fix. We have plenty of laptops in the world that are slim and impossible to fix. There are very few options if you want a laptop that strikes a happy balance between slimness and the ability to repair and upgrade it.
The problem is that everyone wants something different, and Purism only has enough customers to justify making one model at each screen size. For example, I have seen comments that some people want a desktop replacement model with discrete graphics, a socketed desktop processor, good cooling, ethernet, Thunderbolt, etc.
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In my use case I need (!) two separate harddrives. So having the option to have two separate physical drives is a big plus for me.
I don’t care if the notebook doesn’t decode 4k content that good.
I don’t even care for a 4k screen on my notebook because scaling seems to be always an issue (except on MacOS) and I don’t want to spend time on fiddling around with monitor settings, it should just work™
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geforce 7950 gtx
I wrote isn’t possible and i want high end stuff in the notebook 
Where is the problem?
And if i see that system76 got 4 core cpu with Coreboots, thunderbolt 3 and purism not…why that?
There are lot of system where you can change all thing like in the purism one. in the Slim Razer blade you can change exact the same things.
System76 and Purism are making different trade-offs. You as a customer have to decide where your priorities lie. Given a choice of less freedom with more grunt v. more freedom with less grunt - you decide.
(In an ideal world you would not be forced to make that choice but we do not live in an ideal world.)
System76 does indeed offer desktops and laptops with dedicated graphics cards. You will be juggling open source graphics drivers that don’t necessarily expose all the functionality of the graphics card and that may be buggy due to lack of documentation … with closed source graphics drivers that expose all the functionality that the vendor chooses to expose and at maximum available performance but which could be doing anything on the computer and may or may not get bug fixes and may give a bumpy ride across operating system version upgrades - you decide.
Purism has chosen to prioritise freedom and purity. That makes it hard to justify selling a computer with a dedicated graphics card, given that for many applications the Intel integrated graphics are fine.
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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.
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i’m just waiting for the day they tell us that their ARM Laptops are ready to be produced
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
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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.
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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?
wifi card, Coreboot, pureOS, hardware switches, librem key and?
btw.: system76 also made a distro popOS
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.
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want to make a donation in money to free-software AND get a certified RYF open-hardware-device at the same time ? you’ve come to the right place …
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A few things on my list:
- Dual Channel Memory
- 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
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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.
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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
- LEDs visible with display closed
- better builtin speakers
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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.
He probably meant 5Ghz wifi and not 5G cellular technology.
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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.
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Probably.
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.