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1. Bernie (codewiz@mstdn.io)'s status on Sunday, 12-Dec-2021 17:37:35 UTC Bernie

   HN: Putty maintainer on his attitude towards security and open source
   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29530260

   • Bernie (codewiz@mstdn.io)'s status on Monday, 13-Dec-2021 06:29:14 UTC Bernie

     in reply to

     • Patrick Georgi

     @patrick 😂

     By the way, which Coreboot laptop would you recommend for someone who's been using Thinkpad X1s for a decade and wants a similar experience?

     I've been looking at the Lemur Pro 14", and it seems ideal except for missing the Trackpoint™️ and discrete touchpad buttons.

   • Patrick Georgi (patrick@georgi.family)'s status on Monday, 13-Dec-2021 06:29:17 UTC Patrick Georgi

     in reply to
     @codewiz Putty is a Windows tool (yeah, there's a Linux port, but who is using that without coming from Windows first?), and I think that already changes the user base demographics for the better: The biggest problems I face as a coreboot maintainer are with a certain unhinged subgroup of Free Software Fundamentalists and they'd never (admit that they) use Windows.
   • Patrick Georgi (patrick@georgi.family)'s status on Monday, 13-Dec-2021 17:40:56 UTC Patrick Georgi

     in reply to
     @codewiz Uhoh. The Trackpoint requirement is a hard one, it essentially limits you to Thinkpads. Lenovo seems to have managed to build the ultimate vendor lock-in with that.
     
     Apparently the patents have expired, but customizing keyboards is already expensive enough as-is (see S76's keyboard at $280+) that no other vendor seems to dare to work on that.
     
     If you _insist_ on the Trackpoint, there are options, but I'm not sure if any is ideal:
     
     There's the Lenovo C13 Yoga Chromebook that comes with a Trackpoint _and_ coreboot, but as typical for Chromebooks, its specs are rather on the low-end (https://www.newegg.com/laptop/p/1B4-001H-02H79 is the highest-powered model I could find). Also, if you want non-Chrome OS in a comfortable setting, some assembly is required. There's a ready-made alternative firmware image providing a more standard boot method than the one Chrome OS uses, by a trusted community member, that should get you started quickly: https://mrchromebox.tech/#devices (look for "morphius", the code name for that device). It's built from upstream coreboot sources. You could customize your firmware yourself, but starting out is easier with tested releases.
     
     And then there's the modding community, which offers after-market coreboot on some older Thinkpad models. These are usually entirely outdated, but newer models have the firmware locked down, so there's little to do about them. The workaround for _that_ problem is a PCB-swap in an old device like the 51nb X210, which is modern hardware on a new mainboard that is made to fit into an old Thinkpad (but apparently 51nb got into troubles with Lenovo and ceased that work? I never had much luck navigating modding communities, so it's hard for me to find out the latest). Some of these (eg. X210, https://review.coreboot.org/plugins/gitiles/coreboot/+/refs/heads/master/src/mainboard/51nb/x210/) come with after-market coreboot support, which makes that kind of setup doubly unsupported and exciting ;-)
     
     Aside:
     One upside with Chromebooks (except 5+ year olds and one particular recent Dell model, sadly): you can flash firmware externally without opening the box and even when the firmware on the device is non-functional (https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform/ec/+/cr50_stab/docs/case_closed_debugging.md). That makes them pretty neat if you want to mess with the firmware on your device. Those debug cables are in short supply, so a colleague recently published a video on how to build your own with parts that you can actually buy these days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGsyXlgSxFk
   • Bernie (codewiz@mstdn.io)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Dec-2021 07:03:17 UTC Bernie

     in reply to

     • Soh Kam Yung
     • Patrick Georgi

     @sohkamyung @patrick I think I could live without the Trackpoint, but how do people without physical touchpad buttons manage to paste text in the right place with a 3-finger middle-click emulation? What about holding the right button to erase in paint programs?

   • Soh Kam Yung (sohkamyung@mstdn.io)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Dec-2021 07:03:18 UTC Soh Kam Yung

     in reply to

     • Patrick Georgi

     @codewiz

     Not sure if this is an option for you, but Lenovo does sell the Thinkpad keyboard by itself as a USB or Wireless (BlueTooth) keyboard.

     @patrick