Op 25-11-14 om 21:53 schreef Florian Weimer: > * Paul van der Vlis: > >>> (I got an OS-less laptop some time ago for much less than $500, but I >>> don't know if it is CoreBoot-capable. >> >> But can you buy it now? > > This particular one? Probably not. There's another one for 250 EUR, > though. > >> And was it sold to you with the information that it works fine with >> Linux and with open source drivers or did you see that later? > > I don't know anymore. I naïvely expected it to work, and it did.
You are lucky. The wifi works without non-free firmware? And it was new hardware? In which country do you live? Here in the Netherlands we use US-keyboards, and it's not possible to buy laptops without OS for such a price. You can buy laptops without OS, but with Windows they are a lot cheeper. I can buy laptops without OS in other countries, but then they have not an US-keyboard. >> There are very many laptops, but very less salesman do you tell that it >> works fine with Linux and open source drivers. > > The first piece of hardware I bought which advertised Linux support > was an ATAPI CD drive which had a firmware bug which caused it not to > work under Linux, it required a workaround which was only part of the > proprietary Windows driver. > >> When you would want to buy a new consumer grade laptop, which one would >> you buy? I think you don't know ANY new laptop what works fine without >> testing and a risk on problems. > > In Germany, if you buy from an online retailer, you can return it if > it doesn't run with GNU/Linux (I hope, I'm going to find out soon). Here in the Netherlands too. But it's work for nothing. >> For me it's my job to sell laptops with Debian. I have to test laptops >> very carefully before I can sell them. Many consumer modells have new >> versions after 6 weeks, then you have to test again. > > Yes, that's a problem. It's also annoying that they change essential > aspects of the user experience without notice, such as the keyboard. > >>> Obviously, there is also tons >>> of firmware running on other chips besides the main CPU.) >> >> There is some, but I think the SSD is a critical place. > > Worse than the CPU? Come on. > >> I've said there are no open source SSD's. That's not correct: >> http://www.openssd-project.org/wiki/The_OpenSSD_Project >> https://code.google.com/p/opennfm/ >> https://github.com/lightstor/ssd-controller > > You could go with straight NAND storage and a wear-levelling file > system. Some early Linux-based devices did that. I would like that. If you have more information I am interested. With regards, Paul van der Vlis. -- Paul van der Vlis Linux systeembeheer, Groningen http://www.vandervlis.nl _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list [email protected] https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
