The laptop prides itself with being powered only by free software, and that includes a modified Linux kernel

Dec 22, 2014 12:50 GMT  ·  By

Librem 15 aims to be the only laptop coming with completely free software and its makers are looking to get some funding through a crowdfunding campaign.

You might think that if a laptop ships with any Linux distribution, then it would stand to reason that it would be loaded with free and open source software, but the truth is that it's not that simple or even intuitive. For example, it's true that the Linux kernel is an open source project and that it's freely distributable, but there are some people in the community that say it's not enough.

The Linux kernel does contain a number of proprietary binary blobs that do get shipped with any new version, and that is something that some people won't accept, like the ones from the Free Software Foundation. They advocate only completely free software, including drivers, kernels, and everything else in between. As you can imagine, this is pretty hard to achieve.

Librem 15 won't ship with any mystery software

The makers of the Librem 15 laptop say they are also thinking about the hardware, not just about the software. You might be tempted to think that this is not a serious laptop, but you would be wrong. This is actually quite a beast with a 15.6" display (1920x1080 or 3840x2160), a 3.4GHz Intel i7-4770HQ processor, Intel Iris Pro Graphics 5200, a 500GB HD (up to 1TB HD or 1TB SSD), 4 GB of RAM (can be increased up to 32GB), and a 48 Wh lithium polymer battery.

"The Purism Librem 15 is the first high-end laptop in the world that ships without mystery software in the kernel, operating system, or any software applications. Every other consumer-grade laptop you can purchase comes with an operating system that includes suspect, proprietary software, and there’s no way for you to know what that software does."

"The reality is that unless every aspect of your kernel, operating system, and software applications are free/libre and open source, there is no way to know that your computer is truly working in your best interest. Purism is the first to solve this problem," reads the entry on crowdsupply.com.

As it was to be expected, the Laptop uses its own distro called Purism GNU/Linux, which is actually based on Trisquel. The Trisquel is based on Ubuntu, but it uses the Linux-libre kernel that is a modified version of the original kernel with no proprietary source code implemented.

The cheapest version that you can get right now is $1649 (€1345) and it has only the basic hardware features that have already been mentioned above. The new Librem 15 laptops are scheduled to ship in April 2015.

Librem 15 (8 Images)

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