SAN FRANCISCO, July 2, 2020 — Purism, a security-first hardware and software maker, has launched the Librem 14 laptop for pre-order, the successor to its popular Librem 13 laptop line. The Librem 14 was designed based on Purism’s experience with four generations of Librem 13 laptops along with customer feedback. It retains popular security features such as hardware kill switches to disable the webcam/microphone and WiFi and supports PureBoot, Purism’s high security boot firmware. The laptop comes preloaded with PureOS–Purism’s operating system endorsed by the Free Software Foundation.
The most distinctive feature of the Librem 14 is the new 14″ 1080p IPS matte display which, due to the smaller bezel, fits within the same footprint as the Librem 13. Other upgrades and improvements include:
Intel Core i7-10710U CPU with 6 cores, 12 threads
Gigabit ethernet card with built-in RJ45 connector is back by popular demand
Support for two external monitors via HDMI and USB-C
USB-C power delivery in addition to the standard barrel connector
Customers also have the option of leveraging Purism’s anti-interdiction services for added security in transit to verify hardware has not been tampered with during shipment.
“I am beyond excited to see the Librem laptop journey arrive at the build quality and specifications in the Librem 14. This fifth version of our line is the culmination of our dream device rolled into a powerful professional laptop. We have invested heavily so every customer will be proud to carry our laptops, and the Librem 14 will be the best one yet.” — Todd Weaver, CEO and founder of Purism.
The Librem 14 is available for pre-order now with an “early bird” base price of $1199 and will ship in early Q4 2020. For more details on pricing and hardware specifications for Librem 14 visit https://puri.sm/products/librem-14/.
I don’t know the answer to your TDP and PCIe config questions.
As far as RAM, right now we are committing to a single SO-DIMM slot (two slots would be nice though wouldn’t it?! ).
As far as keyboard layouts go, we will only be offering English layouts for now. The way modern laptops are assembled, it’s non-trivial to swap out keyboards, which means if we offer multiple layouts, we end up needing to maintain a certain minimum quantity of the laptop with that layout in stock in the hopes that people from that region will order them. If we get sufficient demand for a particular layout though, we might be able to justify keeping it in stock in the future.
Evidence can be seen in the fact that the 32gb option for RAM is being listed as backordered. My guess: Dual slots can use 2 16gb chips, and 1 would require a single 32gb dimm. Meaning stocking options can’t be determined until the decision of slots is made or finalized.
I’m good either way, but I’m very pleased to see that Purism is taking customer feedback seriously and trying to improve.
I’ll probably order it anyway with the Pureboot + Librem key package and the Privacy Screen is also a very nice add-on.
Was just thinking about the SSD read and write rate one could get if they are connected with a 3x4 PCIe interface each, maybe even with a Raid Config, but that will probably not work with Luks and Pureboot.
The chipset or mainboard would need a raid controller, and the bios would need to be able to work with it. Is there such a FOSS like controller available and does Pureboot support it?
I thought that was only necessary for SATA cause the NVME Devices are directly connected to the PCIe express so I thought this could be done in Software but that might have been a misunderstanding on my part.
So it would just be a single SO-DIMM with user replacable memory or would it have some memory soldered down to the board in addition to the single SO-DIMM?
I’m a little curious also about Intel’s Boot guard, its a feature of all of their latest processor and posseses the capability to lock down the contents of the SPI chip.
From my reading it has a few states available, it can be enabled in various modes, permanently disabled or left in an insecure state where it is not set either way.
From what I understand once set its not possible to change it without replacing the main board.
Do you have any intentions on doing anything with the boot guard feature on these? I think its set by one of those fuses that only manufacturers can set on laptops unless you have software from intel to accomplish this.
We try to avoid soldered-down RAM as we want to ensure users can replace/upgrade RAM on their laptops. In my personal opinion soldered RAM/disk is another casualty of the never-ending drive to thinness that so many laptop vendors strive for, that in my opinion has ruined so many modern laptops. It’s not motivated just by thinness either, it’s to the vendor’s advantage to solder on components so customers are incentivized to order a higher-specced laptop, knowing they can’t upgrade after the fact.
Features like this are a two-edged sword. Many vendors that enable features like that in the name of security, actually do it so they can maintain control over what software runs on the laptop (via signatures) even from the owner of the laptop.
We think if you buy a laptop you should own it and control it, and we try to resist features that put control and trust in Purism’s hands instead of in your hands. In general we try to strike a balance between giving customers strong security but not locking them out of computers that they own or making them dependent on us for their security. That includes giving the user as much ability to reflash boot firmware as we can. Our approach with PureBoot strikes a good balance between securing the boot firmware against unauthorized changes while still allowing a user full control over their own computer (and the keys used to protect it).
If we had enabled a feature like boot guard in the past, for instance, it might have prevented us from allowing customers to upgrade to PureBoot from the standard coreboot firmware that came on their laptops.
Base storage choice is SATA on the first M.2 port but you have the option to upgrade it to NVMe if you want, it just costs more and not everyone needs the extra performance.
Our goal is compatibility with Qubes (after all that’s the OS I use) but whether it’s compatible on day one of launch will have a lot to do with which kernel dom0 has then, and whether it supports the 10th gen processor.
I’ll try to make a point of publishing a blog post (and submitting to the Qubes HCL) when I personally have a final or close-to-final Librem 14 with that CPU running coreboot so I can test and confirm everything.
This is the successor/replacement to the Librem 13 laptop line. We have redirected links to the Librem 13 product page to Librem 14 and replaced the Librem 13 with Librem 14 in our https://puri.sm/products page. We are still selling the Librem 15 alongside Librem 14, as there are customers who prefer the larger footprint and 4k screen on the Librem 15.
Perhaps rephrasing the question might help understand what I was trying to ask.
Since Intel’s newer chips contain Boot Guard what will the default configuration of the FPFs that control Boot Guard be at the end of the manufacturing process for the Librem 14?
Also, Purism used to offer the ability to have the FPFs set in a specific configuration in the past, will this be possible if a customer decides they would like to have the FPFs set in a specific manner on the Librem 14?
Here’s a pdf that discusses it more, I don’t think the intelmetool works on newer chipsets to be able to identify the state of boot guard or the FPFs anymore. I could be mistaken though, if someone knows of a newer tool that functions on the newer chipsets.
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