Built with privacy, security and freedom in mind.
Last year, a San Francisco-based company named Purism showed up on crowdfunding platform Crowd Supply with a promise that nearly 700 privacy-conscious people couldn’t resist: a high-end laptop sans any “mystery software in the kernel, operating system, or any software applications.” It ended up raising $475,000 against a funding goal of $250,000 for Librem 15, the 15-incher in question. It now wants to replicate that success on a somewhat smaller scale — er,we mean to say with a smaller laptop.
The Librem 13 is also built on the same promise as its older, bigger sibling. It runs PureOS, the firm’s home-brewed flavor of Linux. According to the company, the 3-lb device will ship with a modern Intel Core i5 processor fused to run unsigned BIOS code. Other key specs include 13.3-inch FHD display, 4GB of RAM (up to 16GB), 500GB of HDD storage (up to 1TB SSD), Intel Iris graphics, 802.11n WiFi, a 720p camera, three USB 3.0 ports, one HDMI port, and a 48 Wh LiPo battery (up to 8 hours on a single charge).
The most basic variant, which will retail for $1,649, is right now available for pre-order for $1,449. And if you’re worried about the possibility of your own laptop being used to spy on you, you can have your unit fitted with hardware kill switches that completely disable the laptop’s Wi-Fi and camera/mic for an extra $90.
“The Librem 13 ships with PureOS, Purism’s Operating System that leverages the Free Software Foundations certified freedom respecting distribution Trisquel, adding in many security and privacy protecting features, such as Privacy Badger, HTTPS-Everywhere, and strong encryption,” reads the Librem 13 Crowd Supply page. “Making privacy, security, and freedom installed by default takes the difficulty out of keeping up with best practices for users.”
“[The Librem 13’s] bootloader, Linux kernel, GNU OS, and all software applications are completely free/libre software without any binary blobs,” the company says, but concedes the BIOS does include a binary from Intel called FSP. However, Purism is apparently trying to have it freed too.
From maximumpc
from http://bit.ly/1K6FMxx
