FSF Certifies Refurbished Lenovo X200 Convertible Notebook/Tablet For RYF

[phoronix]

Phoronix: FSF Certifies Refurbished Lenovo X200 Convertible Notebook/Tablet For RYF

If you want a laptop or convertible tablet that "respects your freedoms" at all costs with the hardware freed down to the BIOS and don't mind running on outdated hardware to accomplish that goal, the Free Software Foundation has now certified the Minifree X200 that is a refurbished model of the decade-old Lenovo X200 as being "RYF" compliant...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=FSF-RYF-Certified-X200

[Candy]

Bleeding Edge

I want one of those to run a current Distribution ontop of it. I will enjoy watching mp4 movies, use non-stuttering pulseaudio, systemd and the ressource hungry Gnome3. Of course it respects my freedom, because I would use it as a door stopper or have it cover dust somewhere in the corner.

Thumbs up to the FSF for their hard research and time spent...

[euler271]

Wow. It's like the FSF discovered fire ... again. Isn't this (the fact that the Thinkpad X200 is librebootable basically, and what it implies) like ... a *very* well known fact?

[RahulSundaram]

Wow. It's like the FSF discovered fire ... again. Isn't this (the fact that the Thinkpad X200 is librebootable basically, and what it implies) like ... a *very* well known fact?

That you can do it by yourself isn't new. However what is relatively new are vendors selling pre-configured systems and FSF is certifying those.

[euler271]

That you can do it by yourself isn't new. However what is relatively new are vendors selling pre-configured systems and FSF is certifying those.

Good point, there's a difference between the fact itself that it's a doable thing and acknowledging that there's a company willing to do it for you. however, I still find it odd to spend time certifying a 'product' which is basically an EOL(to say the least),refurbished machine from a decade ago. Things like how many machines in stock this company has(and wondering if there are employees of the company sniping auctions on ebay, lol), and who is the target audience for this kind of product (I dont think there're many ppl people out there who know this much about open source/free software/bootloaders/RMS/linux and the like, and at the same time want to pay $200+ for letting other ppl do the 'mod'). But sure, it's potentially good that the alternative exists at all.

[RahulSundaram]

Good point, there's a difference between the fact itself that it's a doable thing and acknowledging that there's a company willing to do it for you. however, I still find it odd to spend time certifying a 'product' which is basically an EOL(to say the least),refurbished machine from a decade ago

It fits within the charter of the non-profit that FSF is. An open hardware platform is really a pre-condition for free software systems and it is also helps promote the FSF as a resource. Is it a niche market? Likely but clearly there are vendors who are willing to do it and probably making a (small) profit off it. The certification very likely involves the vendor paying a fee to FSF for that which is a reasonable way for FSF to generate some additional revenue.

[RavFX]

Could they have done the X201 instead? at lease it does have a i5 or i7...
I do have one of these X200 relic here, they where really good machine a decade ago.

But with the current state of the internet bloatiness and the fact that I Gentoo everything, I don't use it anymore. I'm waiting for a X201 mobo at a decent price as you can put a X201 board in a X200 system. It get like twice the performance and have AES-NI support for so full disk encryption can be enabled without "slowdown everything".

[andyprough]

Could they have done the X201 instead? at lease it does have a i5 or i7...

Once you get into the i5 and the i7, you get into the whole problem of Intel's management engine interface. Obviously that's not going to be acceptable for FSF purposes.

RahulSundaram -

Is it a niche market? Likely but clearly there are vendors who are willing to do it and probably making a (small) profit off it.

Probably a lot of NSA and CIA and MI6 and Mossad spies buy them. Since they already know that all the closed source software and hardware is compromised.

[Fanboy80]

AMD dropping Coreboot support/development before the release of Ryzen/EPYC was the biggest dissappointment of the decade. And guess what, almost nobody cared. If you think buying a Purism notebook, funding the development of the Librem Phone, preordering a Talos machine for a ton of money with compromised IBM CPUs and AMD graphic cards with integrated PSP would change anything, then you're in a deep coma and better wake up lulz.
And if hypothecially all of the sudden somebody developed a completely new computer system with eveything open-sourced down to the last transistor, that guy would be turned trans in 33 seconds.
Sleep tight people.

[AnonymousCoward]

I want one of those to run a current Distribution ontop of it. I will enjoy watching mp4 movies, use non-stuttering pulseaudio, systemd and the ressource hungry Gnome3.

I have its predecessor, a X61 tablet with 2x1.6GHz, 4 GB RAM, an SSD, GMA X3100, and 1400x1050(!) display, and it runs Debian unstable with Gnome3 pretty well, no audio stutter with pulseaudio, and can play some 1080p and most 720p videos (not really demanding high bitrate stuff though).