Expensive "Free/Libre Software Laptop" Uses A NVIDIA GPU

[Calinou]

garbage in - garbage out. even r9 270x has 180w tdp. r9 280 has exactly 250w.

TDP does not represent actual power usage. It's a value sent to OEMs and should be treated like one.

[pal666]

TDP does not represent actual power usage.

it represents maximum power usage

[Luke]

A truly free machine..

It is in fact possible to have a "free hardware" machine, with free software on it, at least in the "free beer" sense. Works best in desktops where you can pull the best parts out of dumpstered or discarded machines to assemble one good one. If you are not gaming or editing video, anything with a PCI-E slot is going to be good enough for most other uses. Recommend Athon 64 X2 or Core Duo or better procs if you can find on in the junk pile. If you get REALLY lucky it's not unheard of to find a Core 2 Quad that someone didn't know was worth anything, I've seen this myself. With all that phone/tablet focus, I suspect desktop pickings are going to be mighty good for a while.

[vitalif]

it represents maximum power usage

Actually it's even less than maximum power usage, because not all of the electricity used by a device is converted into thermal power, some is also used for the calculation

[Luke]

ALL power used in a computer becomes heat except that which becomes sound or RFI

Actually it's even less than maximum power usage, because not all of the electricity used by a device is converted into thermal power, some is also used for the calculation

Even power sent to a read-write head in a hard drive or tape drive becomes heat in the magnetic media, as one alignment of the magnetic state is the same amount of potential energy as another or so close to it as not to be significant in this case. Power in the form of signals sent from a CPU,s memory controoler to RAM is ultimate turned into heat in the RAM, though the PSU will send the power to the CPU and it will be charged against the CPU.

A small amount of power gets transformed into sound or into RF emissions which we know as interference with other uses or RF. Data itself is does not consume energy. Consider a pencil sitting on a desk that can point to the wall or to the chair. Consider pointing to the wall to be storage of a 1, to the chair as a zero. It takes energy to move the pencil, but there is no net change in the potential energy stored in the pencil while moving it, as the height above the floor always ends up the same. Thus, all energy spent to flip the bit becomes heat except for the clack of the pencil striking the desk as you put it down. This, this bit does not store energy, only data. Thus the data itself is not energy. A capacitor used in RAM may store energy in one bit state but will have to release it to flip to the other bit state, thus no net energy output to change settings except for heat.

[vitalif]

Even power sent to a read-write head in a hard drive or tape drive becomes heat in the magnetic media, as one alignment of the magnetic state is the same amount of potential energy as another or so close to it as not to be significant in this case. Power in the form of signals sent from a CPU,s memory controoler to RAM is ultimate turned into heat in the RAM, though the PSU will send the power to the CPU and it will be charged against the CPU.

A small amount of power gets transformed into sound or into RF emissions which we know as interference with other uses or RF. Data itself is does not consume energy. Consider a pencil sitting on a desk that can point to the wall or to the chair. Consider pointing to the wall to be storage of a 1, to the chair as a zero. It takes energy to move the pencil, but there is no net change in the potential energy stored in the pencil while moving it, as the height above the floor always ends up the same. Thus, all energy spent to flip the bit becomes heat except for the clack of the pencil striking the desk as you put it down. This, this bit does not store energy, only data. Thus the data itself is not energy. A capacitor used in RAM may store energy in one bit state but will have to release it to flip to the other bit state, thus no net energy output to change settings except for heat.

Oops. Sorry, of course you're right.

[thewtex]

A Great Free/Libre Software Laptop -- Think Penguin Snares Laptop

I have an outstanding Free/Libre Laptop for a few months now that is much better than the one described in this article -- the Think Penguin Snares Laptop.

It is a GNU/Linux friendly laptop with great specs and a great price. Awesome quad-core latest gen Intel CPU, high-resolution Intel graphics, super speedy 512 GB SSD, 16 GB DDR3, all for only ~1600 USD! And all the other goodies -- USB 3, SD card reader, VGA out, HDMI out, Wifi, Gigabit LAN, nice keyboard that includes a number-pad, CD-DVD drive.

They install the Linux distribution of your choice and send a custom burnt DVD with what they installed. Outstanding customer service. I love this laptop, and I cannot recommend ThinkPenguin enough. Please support them so that they will still be around the next time I need a laptop ;-).

[brad0]

And i7? Who needs that in a laptop? (Yes, some people will find use cases) And makes the price quite hefty. And intel was never coreboot friendly.
This device seem so wrong in many ways to me.

I use an i7 based laptop on a daily basis. There is no reason not to. The CPU was not the big ticket item for the over all cost of the system.

The NVIDIA GPU in the system in the article is the very odd choice, they would have been better with an AMD or Intel GPU.

[brad0]

I know AMD gets a lot of flack from us with releasing source code, but... If AMD just released the source to the firmware or reformed the driver to not need it, they would've been the choice here. I think there's value in being seen as free, by FSF definitions.

Even if that were an issue that doesn't explain the use of an NVIDIA GPU. It is just plain illogical. NVIDIA gets a whole lot more flack for not doing much of anything right.

[xeekei]

Guys, I know that NVidia is even worse when it comes to open source support; in fact, I don't think AMD is very bad at that at all. What I meant was, I was under the impression that Nouveau didn't need proprietary firmware to run, and neither did Intel. People later contested that idea, so now I'm unsure.

The reason I believe AMD gets more flack than NVidia about open source is that we see NVidia as a lost cause, while AMD can be convinced.