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Hello Lains, I'm shopping for a laptop. What are your recommendations in 2024? It needs to support Linux and have good battery life. I want "enough" power but high-end games and video editing are not a priority. I prefer AMD over Intel to avoid IME. It would be nice to have a tough/metal body.

what the heck is wrong with this womans neck? Is this from phone use? Disgusting.

>I prefer AMD over Intel to avoid IME You won't get the ME but you will get AMD's PSP instead

You would have to get something ARM based to avoid anything like IME/PSP. Maybe the ASUS Vivobook S 15 ? Has a metal chassis. Down side is you'd be supporting the AI surveillance hype train. I heard bad things about ASUS before though so I'm not sure. Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge perhaps? Also a metal chassis. Pretty pricey though. Same problem with supporting the AI hype. Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 Or the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x but they don't have a metal chassis and wtf another fuarrrking copilot button…plus I don't personally trust Lenovo after the Superfish incident. Maybe something RISC-V like I don't know the DC-ROMA RISC-V but RISC-V is pretty underpowered currently but depending what you want to do it may be "enough". Again no metal frame though but at least it isn't part of the AI hype and you get an open source based chipset and it's low cost so not a huge loss if it doesn't work out. Does it have to be a laptop? What about a mini PC or something?

Has lainon tried the risc-v laptops? Two of them came out this year (DC-ROMA and MuseBook, both using the same SpacemiT SOC). How usable are they for office work and web browsing? How low power are they?

>>81427 Sure it looks pretty fuarrrked up, but OP's picture was clearly taken back when the height of "phone use" was tappin' like crazy barely grazing 10wpm on your T9 keyb. >>81423 "Intel has IME" is a moot point when comparing chips, AMD are just as bad with their PSP subsystem. If it's something that really concerns you, pick up some ancient relic or look outside of x86 boxes. A little while back I got myself a ThinkPad P50 for next to nothing to replace my W520 that was falling to pieces, it's more than usable for sure. Everything works well out of the box in Debian, I'd expect the same for any similar laptop of its age. Honestly, just lurk ebay or office surplus auctions for just outta contract enterprise laptops, Dell Latitude/Lenovo ThinkPad stuff. Build quality alright, probably the best you'll get these days in a laptop not /built/ to be ruggedized.

>>81436 With windows 10 end of service being less than a year away, one would think used PC market is about to get a bonanza of windows 11 incompatible devices as enterprise fleets transition to the new OS.

OP, buy a certified qubes laptop with heads bios, open source EC firmware, also with Intel ME removed, and call it a day https://novacustom.com/product/nv41-series/ Fly dirty like a boss killah.

Dell, or Acer if you want something cheaper but still ok.

>I prefer AMD over Intel to avoid IME. false hopes

>>81423 ThinkPad E14 Gen 6 ThinkPad E14 Gen 6 ThinkPad E14 Gen 6

Thanks for your replies everyone. I forgot to mention low-heat as a preference, if that isn't already a consequence of long battery life. >>81430 >mini PC It needs to be a laptop. >supporting the AI hype Do you mean the companies are involved in AI or is there something in the hardware? Is the Copilot button more than just another Windows key? >metal It doesn't necessarily have to be metal, just as long as it doesn't bend when I pick it up or adjust the screen. >ARM >RISC-V I definitely want to stick to x86, not just for power but also for maximum software compatibility. I considered buying a Macbook but it seems that even the OS level is still not fully working on Apple Silicon yet. >>81428 >>81436 >AMD are just as bad with their PSP subsystem I must have been thinking of Meltdown/Spectre and how AMD chips required physical access to exploit. Is that still a concern for Intel chips by the way? I never even heard of PSP before. Why does no one talk about ways to deal with it like ME Cleaner or Coreboot for Intel? Is it harder to do? My understanding of ThinkPads is that the newer ones are trash, while the older ones can be good quality but are kind of a parts-hunting hobby and are also being left behind in terms of hardware specs. >office surplus auctions What sites do you recommend for this? >>81439 How do you like it? Any concerns about depending on a small company for updates and replacements? Do you feel the price is fair vs non-custom laptops with similar specs? I'm not sure if I want to pay extra for customization. How does Dasharo compare to Coreboot/Libreboot? What do you do after the 5 years are up? Is there a reason why they don't offer Debian pre-installed?

I don't think it's for everyone, but I got a framework and it's the first time I really like my laptop. I can just buy spares of whatever and never have to deal with RMAs. I'll never have downtime of more than a few hours. It also pays for itself, my last laptop's GPU died and now the thing is relegated to being an adless TV Youtube player, if it was a framework I would just replace the GPU. And overall, it feels like a Linux-first experience, like I'm not fighting it to maintain dual boot order or having to check if the hardware will all work without extra repos.

>>81758 >I don't think it's for everyone What are the tradeoffs in your opinion?

>>81430 I won't recommend T14s as the ram is solderd and can't be upgraded later on.

>>81755 >How do you like it? From what I can tell this laptop with the Open source firmware, bios is as open source as we can get right now for an intel system that basically can do everything. Strap a full GPU for AI if you need to it through eGPU or PCIe riser cables. 64GB ram no problem. The qubes community, dasharo and heads developer Tlaurian are quite active on maintaining the firmware and the software. Until Qubes is ported to RISC-V and risc-v is fast enough to actually handle such overhead, I think this is the best the market has right now. Better even than Snowden's x230 which still doesn't have open source EC but does have open source bios, again through heads. It's all newer hardware so getting after market parts I don't think would be hard. The laptop is a clevo. There are many vendors serving the same hardware for non-qubes stuff. Point is if Nova custom disappears you'll still be able to get hardware from other vendors and support from the qubes community for maintaining the firmware. I don't think there is much to worry about. I made an x230 last for 10 years. Which is just no longer fast enough today for many things. I think I'll be able to make something like an nv41 last for 10 years too if need be. But as Qubes and open source EC is picking up speed to deal with our glowie overlords, don't think we'll have to wait that long for newer laptops this time around.

Thoughts on System76? Any Lains own one?

>>82049 Don't own. They are fuarrrking expensive and their computational power severely lags behind. You can buy x230 and it's gonna be even better, AFAIK. I haven't been updated in a while. Might wanna check specs

>>82085 Yeah sorry I confused it with some other open hardware vendor, that developed cpus that "spied less" or whatever. Sorry for misinformation

>>82049 Bought a Lemur Pro laptop in 2019. It still works great. Coreboot, ME disabled, open EC firmware, most parts are replaceable, no wifi whitelist. It's great. If you don't want a trackpoint or all the ports their laptops that support coreboot are fine. They're clevo rebadges but they're good if you don't mind that. Star Labs also makes good machines but they make their own chassis. A little better hardware than S76 I think. This is a decent review: https://マリウス.com/a-brief-review-of-the-star-labs-starbook-mk-vi-ryzen-ultrabook/

>>82049 Ive heard mixed things on build quality because they are just rebranded Clevos. They really do put in the work though and if you're used to using a regular PC laptop I don't think you'd be disappointed. MacBook fans take issue with the build quality and things like loud fans though.

>>82124 >StarBook That does look nice. And €300 cheaper! I wonder what's the catch - or is that the benefit of not white-labeling? >>82132 >heard mixed things Do you mean people have different standards or is the quality inconsistent?

Thanks to this thread I've been reading a bunch of reviews, and now have a general feeling of disappointment about Linux hardware companies. It's a sea of hype, high prices, low/variable build quality and customer support. I'm not saying we should abandon small businesses and only give money to the big corps, but the products should fill a niche or be significantly better in some way to make up for the overhead and/or inconvenience. Only Framework fits that description right now. At least Star Labs isn't another Clevo shop, but there's nothing special about them compared to the broader market. It makes me wonder how the Clevo gang stay in business when there are so many of them all offering the same thing to a subset of a subset of neckbeards. Want hardware compatibility? Get a certified Dell or Lenovo. Asus has community support. BIOS? Flash it yourself. Pay less and get more. System76 even refuses to ship different language keyboards. Insert joke about Americans?

>>82138 It's not cheaper, the N200 that it defaults to is an anemic 6W CPU that you probably don't want, and the "Ultra 7" upgrade is $800. Plus you have to basically "pre-order" it and it might take months to arrive. I have an older Star Lite and it's really nice.

>>82252 >he needs a foreign language keyboard bruh get good if you need to look at the keys you're not trying

If you don't want IME, AMD is not going to work because they have the same thing, it's just called the PSP. Even the Raspberry PIs come with something equivalent. I recommend librem products. A friend uses a Librem Mini with Devuan, providing a slightly secure computing environment. but there are other options even: * https://www.beagleboard.org/ * https://pine64.org/

>>81436 >office surplus auctions Seconded, where do I find these and how do I make sure there's nothing nasty on them

>>82264 Looked into Librem Mini. It absolutely doesn't have IME? I see no mention about it's Embedded Controller on the site, or whether that's open source. Just talks about the bios chip coreboot instead.

>I prefer AMD over Intel to avoid IME. bad news for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Platform_Security_Processor

>>82276 >how do I make sure there's nothing nasty on them About all you can do is reflash the bios, zero-out (or replace) the drive(s), and install a clean os.

>>82303 >Zero out bios Can you just write 0s to the entire eeprom chip then flash the clean bios .bin file without any trouble? I remember some funky stuff with pinephone flashing. You'd flash. Then try to boot and the old OS would sometimes reappear. So I started writing 0s first. It seemed to help. Dunno if any of this is related.

>>82252 >Clevo bad. Unless I'm missing something, feel free to inform me, but in the open source space for a full-fledged intel system with a ddr4/ddr5 lanes, vendor available data sheets, schematics, no bootguard so you can flash any bios, and an open source EC through dasharo and novacustom, it looks like Clevo is the only option on the market today if somebody really wants a system that can do anything, and not be restricted by ARM or AMD. From my limited understanding NovaCustom bought a ton from the vendor to get the EC and and Unlocked bios chip that you cannot get from other clevo whitelabel shops. Intel being important if you still need to use mainstream OS and drivers in a pinch. For example you receive new emergency job requirements to start using some new or esoteric hardware that's only supported on intel. To reiterate, flashing the bios and EC removes Intel Management Engine. I'm not sure if you've missed all these points or just glossing over them or maybe they're of no interest to you. When I mean intel can do everything, I'm speaking of being able to install mainstream PCIe devices such as GPUs and future neural specific processors of the future but on the go. Again maybe I don't know anything at all. So feel free to inform me.

>82309 >>From my limited understanding NovaCustom bought a ton from the vendor to get the EC and and Unlocked bios chip that you cannot get from other clevo whitelabel shops. Link? Would that mean IME can't be removed from Dell laptops either?

Since this is a laptop shopping thread, i'm looking for either a metal body n100/200 based laptop or preferably a laptop that had a cpu arch that's not AMD64 (commonly known as x86_64) (this would be to prioritize thinness in a metal body + a low tdp). Only example i can think of is the chuwi minibook that comes with an n100 but sadly that thing is too expensive for me. I always regretted not buying a random chinese rebranded one that was popular in my country like 7 years ago (time flies) which was cheap, thin, and with a metal body (i don't need much power to be honest). I love utilitarian looks as much as the next Lainon but sometimes i want something i can just carry on my hand as if it was an A4 paper notepad, lightweight, and with long battery

>AMD still has PSP Is it actually as bad as IME though? IME has ME Cleaner, but it only disables "most" of it. Whereas PSP doesn't have independent network access. So while it could still be compromised if the OS gets infected first, it's not a permanently-open remote backdoor. Combine that with Secure Boot to detect BIOS-level tampering, and PSP seems like the lesser evil.

thinkpad T420 + coreboot + me_cleaner + quad core ivy bridge

>>82252 >BIOS? Flash it yourself. Not always possible + instant warranty void. It's not a $80 x230, bricking a new laptop is easier and more costly. Those laptops are meant for that subset of a subset, and that's enough. >System76 even refuses to ship different language keyboards. Such as God intended

>>81436 I daily a ThinkPad T14s Gen 2 and a Latitude 5410, both were $180