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Thoughts on the librem/purism computers? Both the laptops and the minipc. How would using one of these compare to using a librebooted thinkpad? They claim the intel CPU has had all of the ME soykaf disabled. https://puri.sm/posts/deep-dive-into-intel-me-disablement/ They seem to be based in USA which obviously makes you suspicious. On the other hand they seem to have slowly made a lot of progress...

I really wish they were cheaper. Also the key layout could be a little better.

Libreboot (you should really use Coreboot though, it's more up to date and you can build it without blobs if the board works without them) compatible machines are cheaper & you can probably use me_cleaner on the Intel socket machines you have already. The idea behind Purism is good but I'm not seeing what you're paying for that you can't do yourself. The various hardware vulnerabilities from recent years are more concerning than a co-processor, especially because anyone can leverage them.

You're paying for new hardware that you wouldn't be able to coreboot/libreboot otherwise. Best common system you can get Libreboot on is 10+ years old (T400), and for Coreboot it's about 5+ years old (T440p). Them and system76 disable the ME on 10th gen systems (11th gen can't for some reason) and you can verify with this: https://github.com/corna/me_cleaner/wiki/Get-the-status-of-Intel-ME That being said, purism is kind of a sketchy looking company. They make computers and they do ship, but the support just isn't there and they struggle to get stuff out the door. If you have to make a warranty claim you're probably gonna be on your own. DDG "librem 5 shipping" if you're unfamiliar with them.

>>50596 >Thoughts on the librem/purism computers? Good direction but Intel is garbage. Raptor CS does a better job because their hardware runs entirely libre firmware. Better than nothing I guess.

>>50622 >The idea behind Purism is good but I'm not seeing what you're paying for that you can't do yourself. The various hardware vulnerabilities from recent years are more concerning than a co-processor, especially because anyone can leverage them. Aren't most of those vulnerabilities really just a problem when running a server?

>>50632 Raptor CS is nice but the cheapest system is like $2500, and there doesn't seem to much of a second market either.

>>50633 Javascript on websites could potentially exploit them, though most of us are probably very strict about JS usage.

>>50635 Huh, that sounds pretty fuarrrky, and the only way to mitigate it is to disable javascript or install the proprietary firmware huh

>>50636 You can install microcode packages which patch your CPU when the system boots (only while the system is running though), in theory these have fixes for some of the vulns but they're 100% proprietary of course.

>>50638 Seems like those javascript vulnerabilities are because of speculative execution? And libreboot/coreboot disables speculative execution completely, thus the intel firmware is not needed?

>>50640 I don't see anything about Coreboot disabling speculative execution, IIRC it builds with the microcode blobs by default, so if those disable it then you wouldn't be affected by those vulns (again, in theory).

>>50645 huh I think what I read only applies to libreboot and not coreboot

Librem or Purism looks very fishy to me. https://www.reddit.com/r/Purism/comments/my8u2l/psa_librem_14_units_appear_to_have_been_modified/gvzhyb3/

I wouldn't trust unknown manufacturers. Stick with the mainstream manufactuers: Microsoft, Apple, Dell, HP, and Lenovo. You wouldn't take anything from a stranger, would you?

>>51727 Bot-like opinion. They're all strangers and the companies you mentioned have long record of mistreating and spying on users.

>>51727 You have to go back.