I have absolutely no hardware production, nor hardware design skills at all, but know what make my everyday use of a laptop more simple, more comfortable and more efficient.
I use my librem-13 as my main laptop since I got it some months ago using Debian stretch. Before that I used a MacbookPro 15 inches Retina. It’s clear that I miss some of its features, but the librem-13 has however some inherent defaults. Here are the things I would add on my laptop if I could (with some justifications when possible).
international keyboard: 9 months after I ordered my librem-13 I still do not have the keyboard I paid for. Worse: I do not have any idea of when I eventually will get the french key caps I am waiting for, nor do I know if it will be easy to change them. Using a foreign keyboard (one without any accentuated character) is a really nightmare when you use your laptop for everyday work in non english speaking country (sending french emails without accentuated characters is almost impossible and a definitive nightmare). Every software have its own way of composing such characters. My current workaround is to map the keyboard to the one of my previous laptop and try to work that way (blindly if you prefer). That’s still very hard.
better wifi support: The wifi card is supported as is by Linux, but is very weak. 7 meters away from my wireless router I get a very very poor signal compared to my old laptop or to my phone (10 times worse). I do not know if it came from the card, the antenna or its position but anyway the support must be enhanced seriously.
Working and supported touchpad (better quality for the touchpad): The current touchpad is not yet fully supported under Linux, even with the patches floating around: two finger scrolling is not possible at all, yet. I do not like touchpad, however two finger scrolling help saving some time. Not having it working disables completely the usefulness of the touchpad. For now I use an USB wireless mouse (which occupy one of the two port). There are other trouble with it, which seems to be hardware related. Twice in a (last) week the touchpad stopped working completely. I tried changing the kernel (for the Debian experimental one) and tried different distros (last Ubuntu and PureOS) but nothing changed. After some booting, and some suspends the touchpad restart working magically each time. This seems strange and I do not get precise details or proof yet but everything seems related to a cheap hardware to me. All in all we really need a better and fully supported touchpad.
visible light indicators when the lid is closed: Something I really miss is the possibility to know that the battery is charged or not (or simply is charging) when the lid is closed. This is not possible now since the light indicators are under the screen. The simplest solution is to move them on one of the side of the laptop.
keyboard back light: Not having a backlighted keyboard is really a shame on such high priced laptop. It is really difficult to use it on dark room (for instance on conferences rooms, train, bus, etc.). It is not just to spot the right key (I almost do not use the key caps since I still do not have the french keyboard I ordered) but also to contrast light emitted by the screen brightness (and to rest our eyes).
light sensors: Having the brightness of the screen and of the keyboard adapted to the ambient light atmosphere is a real good point to protect and rest your eyes.
silver colored chassis: Clearly, this is a before everything a question of personal taste but I think that the chassis should be offered in different color. If a justification is needed lighter color, such as silver, are better when you are outside since it repels more sun warm than darker one. I really think that Apple made a nice move when adopting this color instead of the black for Macbook. Purism should follow them, at least on that point.
hardware kill switch labels: The two hardware kill switchs are not labeled at all. Even if one do not use them very often, labelling them should not be that difficult and can add a real ease of use.
more USB(-C) plugs: There are definitively not enough USB ports available. Some must be added (at least one). One good move could be to add two USB-C and replacing the power plug with one of this two. I guess power adaptors with USB-C cable will quickly become mainstream and easy to find.
no option which are not deliverable should be available on the website: If some options could not be deliverable (such as non-US/UK keyboard) they definitively should not be offered and should be removed from the website.
better quality assurance: When I received my librem-13 the back cover of the chassis was not well closed. I need to re-place it correctly and tighten some screws. This is not the sign of a well assembled computer.
librem-14 (same weight but larger screen): When someone comes from a 15 inches screen like me, the 13 inches one is a little bit to small for my old eyes. On the other side I really appreciate the loss of weight. A good compromise could be a 14 inches screen as on Lenovo T440p.
Anyway, before everything, the number one thing which should be changed is the Intel ME non-free blob, but, unfortunately, that may be more difficult that all cited previous propositions
9 months after I ordered my librem-13 I still do not have the keyboard I paid for. Worse: I do not have any idea of when I eventually will get the french key caps I am waiting for, nor do I know if it will be easy to change them. Using a foreign keyboard (one without any accentuated character) is a really nightmare when you use your laptop for everyday work in non english speaking country (sending french emails without accentuated characters is almost impossible and a definitive nightmare). Every software have its own way of composing such characters. My current workaround is to map the keyboard to the one of my previous laptop and try to work that way (blindly if you prefer). That’s still very hard.
Indeed, we intend to push this harder right after we ship all the pre-ordered laptops (which should all finish in June). In future we will either come with international keyboard options (which I prefer) or just remove it as option (which we all don’t prefer).
The wifi card is supported as is by Linux, but is very weak. 7 meters away from my wireless router I get a very very poor signal compared to my old laptop or to my phone (10 times worse). I do not know if it came from the card, the antenna or its position but anyway the support must be enhanced seriously.
The issue of course is WiFI card and freedom driver. That is the best what we currently have (any suggestion are welcome for better WiFi with freedom drivers - we will not use nonfree drivers). On our roadmap we have liberating ath10k driver which would be great achievement and resolve all the issues regarding WiFi (probably not all but most of what we need). Maybe even Purism community petition towards Atheros would be a great deal and maybe even success.
The current touchpad is not yet fully supported under Linux, even with the patches floating around: two finger scrolling is not possible at all, yet. I do not like touchpad, however two finger scrolling help saving some time. Not having it working disables completely the usefulness of the touchpad. For now I use an USB wireless mouse (which occupy one of the two port). There are other trouble with it, which seems to be hardware related. Twice in a (last) week the touchpad stopped working completely. I tried changing the kernel (for the Debian experimental one) and tried different distros (last Ubuntu and PureOS) but nothing changed. After some booting, and some suspends the touchpad restart working magically each time. This seems strange and I do not get precise details or proof yet but everything seems related to a cheap hardware to me. All in all we really need a better and fully supported touchpad.
Two finger scrolling is disabled by default for driver/hardware limitations. I totally agree with you on all this and we will soon start our work/revision on it as it is not acceptable for us to have such touchpad limitations.
Something I really miss is the possibility to know that the battery is charged or not (or simply is charging) when the lid is closed. This is not possible now since the light indicators are under the screen. The simplest solution is to move them on one of the side of the laptop.
TBH, I didn’t pay much attention on this, so thanks for brining it up. I will put it on my list.
Not having a backlighted keyboard is really a shame on such high priced laptop. It is really difficult to use it on dark room (for instance on conferences rooms, train, bus, etc.). It is not just to spot the right key (I almost do not use the key caps since I still do not have the french keyboard I ordered) but also to contrast light emitted by the screen brightness (and to rest our eyes).
Having the brightness of the screen and of the keyboard adapted to the ambient light atmosphere is a real good point to protect and rest your eyes.
I am with you here (need to check the sensors as we can provide software),
Clearly, this is a before everything a question of personal taste but I think that the chassis should be offered in different color. If a justification is needed lighter color, such as silver, are better when you are outside since it repels more sun warm than darker one. I really think that Apple made a nice move when adopting this color instead of the black for Macbook. Purism should follow them, at least on that point.
Totally reasonable request - I’ll be sure to bring this up on next meeting.
The two hardware kill switchs are not labeled at all. Even if one do not use them very often, labelling them should not be that difficult and can add a real ease of use.
Agree. Also on my list is to make them as sliders more rather than switches (more pleasant for eye and less chance to damage them).
There are definitively not enough USB ports available. Some must be added (at least one). One good move could be to add two USB-C and replacing the power plug with one of this two. I guess power adaptors with USB-C cable will quickly become mainstream and easy to find.
Already on our list.
If some options could not be deliverable (such as non-US/UK keyboard) they definitively should not be offered and should be removed from the website.
Agree. We will revisit website soon.
When I received my librem-13 the back cover of the chassis was not well closed. I need to re-place it correctly and tighten some screws. This is not the sign of a well assembled computer.
Agree and we changed our QA process so there should be no issue now (please do report for any future issue). I will revisit QA every month to assure things are working well.
When someone comes from a 15 inches screen like me, the 13 inches one is a little bit to small for my old eyes. On the other side I really appreciate the loss of weight. A good compromise could be a 14 inches screen as on Lenovo T440p.
Sensible request, I’ll bring it up on next meeting.
Anyway, before everything, the number one thing which should be changed is the Intel ME non-free blob, but, unfortunately, that may be more difficult that all cited previous propositions ?
It is going to be a hard road but hey, we didn’t expect anything less than hard work. Our CEO is preparing things for his next meeting with Intel.
I’m impressed by what I see on the Librem laptops, but I’m unfortunately not in the market right now (I currently use a year old Dell XPS 13, though I do have PureOS in a VM).
One suggestion I have for the whole line of Librem products (including the rumored phone) is a front-camera delete option, as in no front facing camera at all. The last laptop I know of to still be available without a front camera is a Dell Precision M4800. The only thing better than a hardware kill switch is to lack the hardware entirely.
I never use the front camera. On my XPS, I have the camera and mic disabled in the BIOS with a piece of black tape over the camera. Being in a business environment, a fair portion of computer users in the company I work at also have tape covering the camera.
One suggestion I have for the whole line of Librem products (including the rumored phone) is a front-camera delete option, as in no front facing camera at all. The last laptop I know of to still be available without a front camera is a Dell Precision M4800. The only thing better than a hardware kill switch is to lack the hardware entirely.
If you’re good with hardware, you can probably open (any) laptop’s cover and simply pull out the web camera connector from the motherboard.
I never use the front camera. On my XPS, I have the camera and mic disabled in the BIOS with a piece of black tape over the camera. Being in a business environment, a fair portion of computer users in the company I work at also have tape covering the camera.
That’s why on Librem laptops you have mic/camera hardware cut-off button. When you switch it, it’s like the laptop doesn’t have a camera and microphone at all. The beauty in this is that you can easily enable it when you need it.
no camera at all (a camera is a complete waste of resources on something as big as a notebook as far as I am concerned)
stickers for kill switches (unusable until stickers are added)
light indicators visible when lid is closed (because that’s when you need them the most)
I add these points:
install partition and/or separate install DVD image that can (re)install either/both PureOS or/and Qubes (and/or PureOS inside Qubes)
instructions on how to disable tap-to-click under Qubes
GNOME for Qubes dom0 (because it’s a pain having to learn KDE or XFCE for dom0 while still having to know GNOME/GTK for the AppVM’s, plus you’ll need this for Qubes on tablet (I guess?))
explicit aid (precise specifications, supplier contact details, part names/numbers) for buying extra batteries and power supplies (and what’s stopping you from doing this today??? presumably this is just cut-and-paste from documents you already have???)
Actually, better than merely GNOME for Qubes dom0 would be Qubes with stripped-down Debian/PureOS for dom0 and Debian/PureOS for sys-net and sys-firewall and the default AppVMs. Having to learn both Fedora and KDE (or XFCE) to administer Qubes is a real downer. (You also have to learn Xen, LVM, devicemapper, etc., as well as the Qubes stuff built on top of all of them.) (I’m sure Fedora and KDE are both technically fine but I long ago chose Debian and GNOME because at the time they better represented free/libre software ideals.)
“That’s why on Librem laptops you have mic/camera hardware cut-off button. When you switch it, it’s like the laptop doesn’t have a camera and microphone at all. The beauty in this is that you can easily enable it when you need it. ?”
True, and it’s sad that this basic feature is groundbreaking. But it missed my point. I have no use for a camera on a computer, and I’m sure many others are in the same boat. Why do I have to buy a camera when I never use it? As for my XPS 13, the camera can be unplugged (I’ve given plenty of thought to unplugging it, but opening the computer breaks the clips and I just rebuilt the whole thing a few months ago), but the microphones cannot as they are on the same ribbon as the charge light.
They could have the computer designed to accept a camera and a mic, but make the camera module and mic module separate and easily installable/removable. Include a modular lens that can be removed from the bezel and a blank put in its place. Now one PC can be configured with no cam/mic, mic only, or both a mic and a camera either at the factory or by the user. This way, someone like me can purchase the PC without either mics or a camera, but if I find later that I want a mic, I can buy a mic module and pop it in. Obviously keep the hardware kill switch, but save the user a few bucks from not having to buy components that won’t be used. If I could find a phone that doesn’t have a front-facing camera, I’d be all over it. I don’t like having a camera pointed at me not knowing if it is active or not.
Take my XPS for example. The same motherboard can take either the 1080 non-touch display or the 4K touchscreen, and swapping it out is a matter of unscrewing one screen and screwing the other one on and plugging it in.
Joe, thanks for your suggestions. Our director of technology will take a look. For now, we will focus on what you named “explicit aid”. I’ll post a new reply as soon as new info comes out.
I would like to add my support to Tim’s suggestion of a no-microphone-and-camera-at-all option. Or it should be extremely easy and detailed instructions should be supplied on how to remove both the camera and microphone without any risk to the rest of the machine.
The same goes for bluetooth. I’ve never used bluetooth with a laptop. It’s nothing to me except a security risk that cost me money to purchase and drains battery power.
Bluetooth tends to come with your wireless card in laptops. It’s part of the integrated chip and you don’t have a separate piece of hardware to unplug or remove.
Can’t speak to what will seem reasonable for the guys at Purism but there are times when a part is just cheap enough that it honestly isn’t worth removing. I suspect the camera and microphone are going to be not worth removing. Since the cabling needs to go through the hardware switch you should be able to permanently do something to them. I don’t have mine to check the ends and whether there is a connector or if it’s just soldered to the switch though. I definitely would NOT advise snipping wires though: remember one of those switches handles your wireless and you may want that later.
I agree with every point raised by Bruno. I recently had to swap out my original Librem 13 for a replacement and can note the build quality is certainly better than my original kickstarter hardware. Kudos!
Going forward, it might be worth considering offering Subgraph OS as an option or even re-basing PureOS off of it. It provides a lot of great security features like grsec/pax, LXC based containerization of GUI applications via their Oz package, and many other features.
I don’t think Tor proxying by default makes sense but my understanding is that the next Subgraph alpha may make transparent proxying (a great feature) a toggleable option.
Thanks again for all the hard work thus far. Looking forward to Coreboot whenever that lands!
Rebecca
PS: Please consider copperhead OS on the upcoming phone!
My two cents: product consolidation. Has there been a survey done for the 3 models’ demand? I suggest focusing on creating one excellent product by fusing the 3 models: release a 14" with 360 degree hinge to please everyone.
Please share your opinion on AMD’s secure memory encyption + secure encrypted virtualization (that will be implemented in hardware in their upcoming Zen architecture chips). Perhaps temporarily suspend laptop revision plans and focus on the phone (which I’m also interested in). Can you negotiate with AMD on a smaller scale to create chips without ARM trustzone; another kickstarter?
Lastly, I disagree regarding the non-camera/mic version - they should just have one model with hardware kill sliders. Makes sense from business and quality perspectives (in my opinion). +1 for lit keyboard, +1 light indicators/sensors, +1 bluetooth kill slider (if possible).
*Pardon the thread revival, didn’t want to create a new one.
When someone comes from a 15 inches screen like me, the 13 inches one is a little bit to small for my old eyes. On the other side I really appreciate the loss of weight. A good compromise could be a 14 inches screen as on Lenovo T440p.
Sensible request, I’ll bring it up on next meeting.
I just found out about the librem laptop via googling around for a new laptop. This is seriously the closest thing for me to get what I want. I’m a long time MacBook Pro user, and basically the only reason I went back again and again to the MacBook Pro is just this bloody 16:10 screen. I really can’t believe that Apple is the last vendor to offer 16:10 screens. Especially on 13" laptops, that are used for work, not movie watching it is ridiculous to have even more vertical space chopped of by going to 16:9. So my one question would be if it is somehow feasible to have a 16:10 screen? May it be 13 or 14 inch… I guess the market for those displays with a single buyer is quite small, hence expensive. But I thought I’d at least ask!
The issue of course is WiFI card and freedom driver. That is the best what we currently have (any suggestion are welcome for better WiFi with freedom drivers – we will not use nonfree drivers). On our roadmap we have liberating ath10k driver which would be great achievement and resolve all the issues regarding WiFi (probably not all but most of what we need). Maybe even Purism community petition towards Atheros would be a great deal and maybe even success.
Sorry but I disagree. I had other notebooks with Qualcomm Atheros wireless chips supported by the free ath9k driver and I never had such a poor WiFi signal. And I think it’s a really, really bad idea to make people think that this is what you get when you decide to use free software. The FOSS wireless driver is not the reason for our poor WiFi signal.
The Qualcomm Atheros QCNFA222 (which is built in our Librem 13) was never supported by the ath10k module – “ath10k is the mac80211 wireless driver for Qualcom Atheros QCA988x family of chips, which support IEEE 802.11ac” (see Linux Wireless Wiki). When Todd wrote about your plan to support the replacement of the nonfree firmware blob within the ath10k driver (see his blog post) he was talking about the chips supporting 802.11ac. But this has nothing to do with our poor WiFi signal problem.
I think this is a hardware related issue… Is Bruno really the only other Librem 13 supporter who is affected by this?
When you use a distro like Ubuntu, non-free firmware files are installed by default and so the Qualcomm Atheros QCNFA222 is not only used for WiFi but also for bluetooth connections – this can result in an even worse WiFi signal because of interference. In this case there’s a module option (for the WiFi driver ath9k) that may help, btcoex.
To manually enable bluetooth coexistence create a new file /etc/modprobe.d/ath9k.conf, add this line and restart: options ath9k btcoex_enable=1
I don’t think there is a need for a reset hole.
If something goes wrong one can simply reinstall the operating system using a pureos USB (or any other open source os).
Wouldn’t there be iso images available for download for tablet(librem 11) , phone (librem ?) ?
Will the installation method on all devices be similar:
-disk selection and configuration
-administrative password
-user name and password
You know like a normal open source os installation.
Other os(including android) are too locked down preventing a casual user from installing the os of his choice by making it as hard as possible.
The wireless is painful! I often have to tether my phone as as wifi modem because the signal I get on the laptop is so weak.
I would also like to request better documentation, for example diagrams of the internals so I can do stuff like physically disconnect the camera and mic that I never use. Oh and a guide for sourcing replacement parts would be nice. (Keyboard and LCD for example.) Part numbers and manufacturers/suppliers?
Also what is the status of Coreboot? How can I flash it to my bios?
Our CEO is preparing things for his next meeting with Intel.