A website, minifree.org, sells Thinkpad x220s with Libreboot and Debian preinstalled for a minum price of £798.00 (currently about $997.02). However, you can get refurbished x220s anywhere from $200-$300 from other sites, and just install that stuff yourself if you wanted to.
Does the labor to install Libreboot and Debian justify the extra cost?
Other urls found in this thread:
minifree.org
litebook.store
twitter.com
No fuck Francis Rowe and fuck his website
>$1000
>for an x220 with 4gb ram and a 160gb hdd
this is way too stupid even for a niche product
Also, I will try to be ask fair as possible and also say that they claim to do other things for the laptop as well, such as providing custom parts to support the all-free software support.
....but still, that price just seems to make it a deal breaker.
No way
No, it's that mentally ill tranny trying to survive.
The X200 models were price a lot more sanely. Maybe the price will go down with time.
Also, do consider that they are working on disabling Intel ME on it. So the cost also includes some development work.
>Does the labor to install Libreboot and Debian justify the extra cost?
Debian? Absolutely not, but the other parts are much more complicated than installing an OS.
They are swapping parts for ones supported w/ libre drivers (still easy, hardly a justification for the whole price)
_and_ flashing libreboot requires extra hardware and some skill beyond just installing an OS. You can't flash any Thinkpads newer than X60 and T60 without a hardware flasher, so one of those costs some money (I think some china models are pretty cheap tho)
Plus they are reverse engineering the Intel ME-related crap.
Expensive, sure, but I don't think its too bad. Maybe they could do it cheaper, but not so cheap that it'd seem cheap.
Well the x220 is not supported in Libreboot officially. And no, it's not worth it. You can buy the laptop itself for about 200 and then go find one of those ebay services that installs Libreboot for you. Offer them 20-50 more than the original price to do an x220 with Coreboot/SeaBIOS/ME Cleaner instead. They'll probably do it and the finished product would still be half the price of minifree.org is asking.
>Expensive, sure, but I don't think its too bad. Maybe they could do it cheaper, but not so cheap that it'd seem cheap.
Maybe 100 to 150 usd above what used x220 go for sounds ok, like 2 hours of work per device. This is just a rip off. If you are working at commercial scale (lol) you can't charge half the price of the flasher with every laptop
>you can't charge half the price of the flasher with every laptop
This. You can use the clips dozens of times and the SBC like a Raspberry Pi or Beagle Bone Black will probably never wear out.
minifree.org
This is what you're really paying for, I think. They also give a full 2 year warranty and you can probably trust that everything will be fine w/ the laptop.
Plus the labor, plus the fact that you won't need to first find a laptop and then ship it somewhere else and so on.
I see it this way
>Want to support the development + have a lot of money?
Go for the X220 if you want to.
>Just want a reasonably priced 100% free laptop?
Either go full poor and do an X60/T60 software flash or find an X200 (or pay for an installation service or install it yourself).
But idk I'm European so I can't acquire $200 X220:s in the first place, the regular used ones with shitty half year warranties are already over 300 euros. ...Maybe this affects minifree as well, I mean, they are based in the UK.
(Actually checked again: used 6 month warranty X220s can be had for about 250 euros + shipping - still, far away from a $200 refurb)
dont the x220 have the intel management engine? so this is pretty much pointless
Yeah, but the minifree site thing is actually a preorder. They will ship after they've worked out how to disable the ME - that is, later this year, hopefully.
Or if they fail, they will use another workaround. Or the people who ordered can say that they don't want that shit.
I run an ebay service that installs libreboot for $80. Installing libreboot + GNU is at most 2 hours of labor.
Will you do it for the X220? Will you disable the ME by the end of the year?
Yes, when/if the libreboot dev team figures it out. No, and I doubt anyone else will, either.
If you want to throw money at the libreboot project, buy a laptop from minifree.
Or just get a litebook for less than $300.
litebook.store
Looks like a flimsy piece of shit. I'd rather go for an X60.
>Does the labor to install Libreboot and Debian justify the extra cost?
think about how many of these "libre" notebooks they're going to sell. 10, maybe 12? but they still have to pay the rent at the end of the month. so they up the prize. its easy math.
>Linux laptop
>comes with Windows key
Yeah, naw.
how much business do you get?
Only around 1-2 sales a week right now. It's a nice side job for a college student though.
There's a British site I think which sells Hackintosh Elitebooks.
that's not too bad. i'm in college too and i buy thinkpads from government surplus sales and resell them on ebay for money. a while back i got 175 thinkpad x60 tablets for $800. i was thinking of maybe putting libreboot on some of them and seeing how they sell
>comes with windows key
What?
> i buy thinkpads from government surplus sales and resell them on ebay
sounds breddy sick
...
yeah i also get a bunch of other shit like police radios and scanners and medical shit, my dad does it too. about a month ago the mr robot props department bought a shit ton of police radios from him so we're waiting to see if they show up in the show next season
Oh, it's you. Didn't think I'd actually find you on Sup Forums. My T500 works great but still having trouble with that atheros wifi card you gave me. Had to use wifi usb just to get it online.
are there any sandy bridge/ivy bridge era HP elitebooks with good screens?
Sorry mate, but I was in the middle of trying to diagnose your problem and you stopped responding.
keyboard not serial
Wow. That's very difficult to replace.
I just bought one of these from ebay and they havent shipped for 3 weeks
Too afraid to say anything because I think I fell for a honeypot or con
they cant con u unless you wait like 45 days without saying anything. ebay always sides with the buyer no matter what. you could buy a computer a return it and ship them back a rock that weighs the same and there's not shit they can do about it