Purism seeks funding for 15-inch free software Linux laptop

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Nov 19, 20143 mins

In today's open source roundup: Purism wants to sell a Linux laptop that runs only free software. Plus: The Jolla Linux tablet easily surpasses its $380,000 funding goal, and how well does Nvidia's open source driver perform while running Linux games?

Update: Phoronix has a different take on Purism, and some redditors are also skeptical about it.

Purism’s Librem Linux laptop

Purism is seeking crowd-sourced funding for its 15-inch Linux laptop. The Librem laptop is designed to run on truly free software only, there will be no closed-source software included with it (even for drivers).

Chris Hoffman at PC World reports on Purism’s free software only laptop:

Purism, which launched a drive on Crowd Supply on Wednesday, is seeking at least $250,000 to make a high-end Linux laptop that only runs free, or open-source, software. This means no annoying closed-source drivers—or “binary blobs”—necessary to make the hardware work.

Purism claims the laptop’s hardware has been “meticulously designed chip by chip to work with free and open source software,” saying it’s the “first laptop to reinstate your rights to freedom and privacy.”

More at PC World

You can get more information on the Librem 15’s page on Crowd Supply. Here’s a list of the Librem 15’s tech specs:

15.6″ 1920×1080 display

8 Core 2.3GHz Intel i7 with nVidia Graphics

375 x 244 x 22mm 2.0Kg

14 x 9.6 x 0.86″ 4.4lbs

4GB Mem (up to 8GB)

500GB HD (up to 1TB HD or 250GB SSD)

CD/DVD ROM Drive

48 watt/hour lithium polymer battery

65W power adapter

Up to 8 hours usage

Three USB 3.0 ports

One HDMI port

One Pop-Down RJ45 Network port (r8169)

802.11n WiFi (ath9k)

720p camera

HD Audio

Full-size backlit keyboard

SDXC card slot

Purism GNU/Linux Operating System (Trisquel based)

More at Librem 15 at Crowd Supply

Check out a video preview of the Librem 15 Linux laptop:

Jolla Linux tablet surpasses $380,000 funding goal

Speaking of crowd-sourced funding, the Jolla Linux tablet achieved its funding goal after only a few hours. Linux users are clearly interested in buying this tablet.

Joey-Elijah Sneddon reports on the amazing fundraising success of the Jolla Linux tablet:

In barely a few hours Jolla has already surpassed its $380,000 target. And while that goal may sound cheap when compared to the $32 million Canonical sought to raise, the hardware the Fins are offering is anything but…

Aside from out-classing its rivals in screen, power and price, the device is also being custom made and designed; this isn’t some off-the-shelf Android tablet from China with Sailfish OS slapped on, but a couture fit of hardware and software.

More at OMG Ubuntu!

Here’s a video preview of the Jolla Linux tablet:

The open source Nvidia driver and Linux gaming

Linux gaming has been growing by leaps and bounds lately, but how well does Nvidia’s open source Nouveau driver stack up for gaming on Steam? Phoronix ran some tests to find out just what Nvidia’s driver is capable of while running Linux games.

Michael Larabel reports on the Nouveau driver’s performance for Phoronix:

…here’s a look at the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Team Fortress 2 performance when testing the games on the latest open-source NVIDIA (Nouveau) Linux graphics driver code.

The graphics cards tested for this article included the GeForce GTX 460, GTX 550 Ti, GTX 650, GTX 680, GTX 760, GTX 770, and GTX 780 Ti. The tests happened from an Ubuntu 14.10 x86_64 system with the Xfce desktop while upgrading to the Linux 3.18 Git kernel and also xf86-video-nouveau 1.0.11 Git and Mesa 10.4-devel Git from this week.

More at Phoronix

What’s your take on all this? Tell me in the comments below.

jim_lynch

Jim Lynch is a technology analyst and online community manager.

Jim has written for many leading industry publications over the years, including ITworld, InfoWorld, CIO, PCMag, ExtremeTech, and numerous others.

Before becoming a writer, Jim started his career as an online community manager. He managed Ziff Davis’ forums on CompuServe and the web including the PCMag and ExtremeTech forums. He’s also done community management gigs with the Family Education Network, Popular Mechanics and MSN Games. Jim still has a passion for well-moderated discussion forums that offer helpful information without a lot of flames, rudeness and noise.

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