Librem 13: A few problems

I bought my old Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon (1st gen.) when I entered grad school for my Master's program, in 2012. And after six years, the Thinkpad still ran well, but it was getting old, so I figured it was time for a change. I went back and forth about what kind of system should replace my laptop. I don't travel that much, so I figured a desktop would be better. And I could get a bigger screen. After going back and forth on the decision, I decided to get a laptop. I don't often travel with a laptop, but when I do, I prefer to use my primary system so I don't have to keep things synced. Of course, I wanted my system to run Linux. Purism is aimed at the Linux laptop market, and I wanted to support that. So I bought a Librem 13. I've had it now for about a week, and I love it now. But I'll be honest, I didn't love it right out of the box. I'd like to note two issues for folks who are thinking about getting a Librem laptop, so you aren't surprised like I was.

Linux 4.17-rc7

So this week wasn't as calm as the previous weeks have been, but despite that I suspect this is the last rc. This week we had the whole "spectre v4" thing, and yes, the fallout from that shows up as part of the patch and commit log. But it's not actually dominant: the patch is pretty evenly one third arch updates, one third networking updates, and one third "rest". The arch updates are largely - although not exclusively - spectre v4. The networking stuff is mostly network drivers, but there's some core networking too. And "the rest" is just that - misc drivers (rdma, gpu, other), documentation, some vfs, vm, bpf, tooling.. The bulk of it is really pretty trivial one-liners, and nothing looks particularly scary. Let's see how next week looks, but if nothing really happens I suspect we can make do without an rc8. Shortlog appended as usual. Go out and test.

Today in Techrights

• The Way Things Are Going in the Eastern District of Texas and Other US District Courts, South Korean Companies Might as Well Exit the US Like They Exit China
• The Patent Extremists Resort to Trump-Styled China-Baiting in an Effort to Destroy US Patent Policy
• Letting the USPTO Decide on Fees Would Lead to a ‘Battistelli Scenario’
• Another Week of Federal Circuit Supporting PTAB and Acting Tough for Patent Quality in the United States
• The Irish Knowledge Development Box (KDB) is Just Another Tax Evasion Ploy
• Software Patents Advocacy and UPC Lies Go Hand in Hand
• IAM Warns That China is Outpacing the United States at Granting Rubbish, Unproductive Patents on Abstract Things
• On Ethics of Patent Lawyers
• Techrights at 24,000

Libre Hardware

• Flash your Libre Firmware with a Libre Programmer

  Whether or not you personally agree with all the ideals of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), you’ve got to give them credit: they don’t mess around. They started by laying the groundwork for a free and open source operating system, then once that dream was realized, started pushing the idea of replacing proprietary BIOS firmware with an open alternative such as Libreboot. But apparently, even that’s not enough, as there’s still more freedom to be had. We’re playing 4D Libre Chess now, folks. [...] Luckily, the FSF has just awarded the Zerocat Chipflasher their “Respects Your Freedom” certification, meaning every element of the product is released under a free license for your hacking enjoyment.

• Coreboot Picks Up Support For Another Eight Year Old Intel Motherboard

  If by chance you happen to have an Intel DG41WV motherboard, it's now supported by mainline Coreboot so you can free the system down to the BIOS. The DG41WV motherboard comes from the LGA-775 days with an Intel G41 Eaglelake chipset back when DDR3-1066 was great, motherboards topped out with 4GB of RAM, four USB 2.0 ports were suitable, and motherboard PCBs were much less fashionable. The DG41WV was a micro-ATX board and a decent choice for the times to pair with a CPU like the Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad.