Linux-fueled Thoughts Unhinged

I wanted to keep talk of these companies, which I've been liking the more I look into each of them, down.

However, I can barely keep my excitement contained any longer.

Since neither System76 nor Framework is new or remotely close to secret, I'll start talking about them.

System76

The Lemur Pro is my favorite model of laptop offered by System76.

This is the comparatively closest to a ThinkPad X1 Carbon from Lenovo. Because of this, there is no discrete GPU (a.k.a., an Nvidia GPU) to possibly fret over.

That's good, because a GPU can be used to fingerprint computer users browsing across the web. There was some study released within the last 2 months, I think. However, I'm not going to link that here.

Anyways, System76 has been working hard on using coreboot on its laptops. It's sort of known that the easiest way to get coreboot on your laptop is to straight up buy a laptop with coreboot on it. I mean, it's pretty obvious, but either not practical or preferable by some people out there. I respect that.

However, if you're trying to get a parent or older relative to use Linux, then you should strongly considering get them a System76 laptop with Pop!_OS on it. Pop!_OS is Ubuntu-based (for now... at least) and using System76 hardware ensures that laptop has firmware updates, making this the closest loose analogue to GrapheneOS on currently supported Pixel devices in terms of having good overall hardware security practices.

Due to this, I'll probably purchase this for a parent... as soon as System76 designs its first in-house laptop. This means that the laptop will be able to (hopefully) remove Intel ME entirely — which will be a first on a modern, freshly produced laptop on the X86_64/amd64 platform since the ThinkPad X220 or X230 in 2012-2013.

Wow, a 10 year gap...

Anyways, this brings me to my next tangent: don't go out into Arch Linux land or elsewhere unless you know you're up for the challenge. Luckily there are various AUR packages for System76 firmware supplied directly from System76 itself. Amazing and dedicated. I respect that.

As of late March 2022, the Arch Wiki page for the Lemur Pro is a bit... lacking. (Also, this laptop was released in April 2020? Daring to release during this everlasting chip shortage which I felt started in 2019...)

I'll have to look at the other System76 laptops (I think?) in the System76 category on the Arch Wiki. Including the Lemur Pro (as of late March 2022), there are 5 devices.

I may have to consult the pages of the other laptop models with more fleshed out Arch Wiki pages, such as for the Darter Pro 6 or the Oryx Pro.

These Arch Wiki pages may have some common System76 firmware related packages on the AUR that I'll need for the Lemur Pro.

There seems to be good progress on support from System76, according to this blog post. From what I've glanced over very quickly so far, I see that if you have the reciprocating skills and/or motivation to iron out quirks on System76 hardware, then Jeremy Soller is very likely to help you out (even via Twitter)! Cool beans, dog.

Anyways, I'll have to listed to the Part 2 podcast episode with System76 (specifically part 2 of 2, so far, with Soller; there is a Part 3 with System76 episode, but it's with another employee from System76, though I might check out that part 3 episode because I'm sure you can't be any slouch when it comes to System76) from Linux for Everyone on YouTube.

Double check the half-baked ideas in my head with this YouTube podcast episode from Linux for Everyone.

Framework Laptop

Next up is the Framework Laptop, which is on the Arch Wiki.

Not much to say here, but I'll probably get the Framework Laptop first. It's because this (tentatively) first model is here for a while, and I won't hold my breath for this very first model of Framework Laptop to open-source its entire firmware. If I recall correctly, the embedded controller was open-sourced? I'm not sure.

Refer to this Reddit thread referencing this Hacker News thread.

The Arch Wiki is heavily documented and looks a lot easier for me to get myself into.

However, I'd still choose the Framework Laptop for being able to accommodate up to 64GB of socketable SODIMM RAM — which makes this hardware a prime non-Qubes OS certified hardware candidate for me, at least in my books.

System76 hardware (especially when the in-house laptops begin to come out) are also good, if not even hypothetically better candidates to install Qubes OS myself.

However, the time isn't quite right for me — yet.

Honorable(?) mentions: Tuxedo Computers

TUXEDO Computers and Purism are also making with Intel ME neutered.

First, even though I'm sure that Tuxedo Computers must make enough money to work with Jason Evangelho (I have no idea if he's still doing YouTube or something like that anymore), I have some reservations. Tuxedo apparently attempts to neuter Intel ME on its laptops.

However, it appears to be German/EU centric — sort of like Nitrokey. Because of this (and since Evangelho lives in Croatia or something), I can't recommend it to us back in the U.S.A. that much — unless you want to pay heightened shipping costs (assuming if Tuxedo even ships to the U.S. in the first place).

Second, I'm sure that Purism's laptops aren't a literal scam. However, I heard that some people who pre-ordered the Librem 5 back in 2019 still haven't gotten the device yet. No, Gardiner Bryant doesn't fricken count — he has insider connections and is a simp for GNOME, which is just outright shameful. It's one thing to accept that Tails has chosen GNOME in the snail's pace world of Debian Stable for the base, but it's another separate matter to voluntarily choose to install GNOME on Manjaro and foolishly declare GNOME the next step forward in DE development when even Pop!_OS's COSMIC has to install several reasonable and sensible GNOME extensions just to temporarily rectify the Original Sins committed by the latest releases of GNOME committed even before the infinite past began.

And Bryant pretends to be a System76 simp? Please, shut up, forever and always. You'll never have anything meaningful to say for the rest of your life. In fact, your last breath before your death will be meaningful to this world than anything you ever you from now until your last breath.

I would burn Bryant at the stake if I were to discover that he uses GNOME with no extensions for objectively true heresy and for literal GNOME witchcraft worshipping — not even the mighty Tails can function without curated GNOME extensions.

(Yeah, so this part is the reason why this FBI Watch List worthy blog post is being put here.)

Man, somehow Gardiner Bryant made me even more angry than even all of the conservative simps in the fan camps of DistroTube, Mental Outlaw, Luke Smith, and Brodie Robertson... but it's not like the regressive liberal camps of GNOME are my friends either.

Anyways, Purism kind of makes me mad not because of Ariadne Conill's or Daniel Micay's (oh, another reason why this post is being put in the rant bin) security criticisms of the Purism 14 EC firmware or whatever; but because Purism is basically the FOSS and right to repair (R2R) corporate analogue to Apple. You can't make the world a better place by being Apple, but FOSS and R2R friendly. You're just another small company that isn't a megacorporation, but still have the same corporate structure of a Kaczynskian socialized leftist culture that's present in Canonical — another reason why Ubuntu sucks.

(I will never stop trashing Ubutnu whenever any opportunity presents itself — Mutahar is such an idiot for saying that Pop!_OS is “dog shit”, as an Arch Linux user who doesn't even remember how the Ubuntu experience was like. Ubuntu sucks so much that Qubes OS can't redistribute Ubuntu as a Qubes OS template VM without ripping out all the branding bullcrap due to stupid copyright as draconian as Thomas Edison.)

Conclusion

That's why I believe in System76 and Framework: the two may be approaching the fundamental (business) problems of FOSS and R2R from different angles, but I feel like both will eventually have very large overlap — if not have a convergence of over 90%.

On one hand, ramework will probably be more focused on more novel and envelope pushing R2R hardware designs, while not initially caring a lot about “schematics or die” and coming preloaded with Linux out of the box. On the other hand, System76 is trying to fully open-source the entire laptop and desktop industry as much as possible from the equivalent PoV of an end-user company, pushing the application of FOSS principles as far vertically and horizontally as much as possible in the industry while keeping the equivalent amount of repairability in its laptop and desktop hardware from the 2000-nots and early 2010s. System76 shows that you don't have to be a giant evil megacorporation making computer hardware that everyone sees everywhere for no good reason yet everyone hates just as much in equal measures, if not in higher proportions (I'm looking at HP and Dell).

I swear that I will try my very best to organically include a fight scene where some low level villain grunts have their trashy Dell and HP computer hardware gets totally demolished and the grunts get killed by the protagonists using a literal ThinkPad to mash the grunt's heads open in an office setting. (Wouldn't it be great to kill a visibly obvious Apple adoring villain get all their facial bones and nose broken with a large, hefty ThinkPad model from the latest offerings in the T or P lines by a hero? I'm probably nearly 100% delusional when I say this, but I think that be a neat idea!)

Hotline Bling Drake says no to killing two men at a bar with a Ticonderoga pencil, yet Hotline Bling Drake says yes to John Wick killing a person via blunt force trauma to the head with a ThinkPad. I've always wanted to see John Wick kill a person with ThinkPad, but I think realistically that's not going to happen anytime soon... as much I've become disenchanted with Lenovo for emasculating the highest end ThinkPads with Kaczynskian socialized leftist trends from Apple (such as, but not limited to: shorter key travel, soldered-on WiFi cards, and blindingly white GUI-/mouse-based UFEI/BIOS screens after the X1 Carbon Gen 7 in 2019, and even more!), I wouldn't want to see the latest true crime story trend smear the ThinkPad legacy with a “ThinkPad murderer” story. I'm objectively and literally triggered whenever I see the Lululemon brand due to the Lululemon murder case.

The real conclusion

I use the Fediverse because it makes the U.S.-based IC agencies work slightly harder in order to put me on some surveillance blacklists than if I had used a Blogger blog backdoored by Google's ownership. (Well, technically Alphabet, but we all know that Google made the big brained umbrella parent shell corporation move way before any real public facing controversy way before the small brained Facebook made the same corresponding move with Meta.)

Anyways: no hate, but I cannot see myself buying a new ThinkPad laptop (at least the X1 Carbon) ever again. It's not the weird China Orwellian surveillance during the 2022 Winter Olympics or that California skateboarder who competed for China, or whatever.

It's that there are now objectively better options out there.

All of the ThinkPad haters since the IBM-Lenovo acquisition/transaction were eventually correct — the ThinkPad is on the decline in quality, but not for any of the weird, literally subjective Chinese xenophobic reasons used in the early 2000-nots.

Just like how Samsung Galaxy smartphones (not so much for the tablets)

Don't get me wrong — Lenovo still has all the patents to the ThinkPad keyboard goodness and I'd buy a ThinkPad (even in the E series!) with my own money any day over a free spec'ed out M1 MacBook or Mac desktop (not the weird all-in-one iMacs).

As a speculative and potential next customer, will the keyboards from either company ever be as good as the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 6? Probably not. However, will the rest of the package make up for this? Heck yes, absolutely!

Now, I will no longer have to play the practical game of elimination like how I play with politics: I will no longer have to purchase a laptop based on the metric of minimizing how much I dislike a laptop when it comes to ThinkPads — which is rather negative on my psyche. Instead, now I can pick my laptop based on how much I can holistically maximize liking a laptop as an entire package.