On Wed, 28 Sep 2016 11:35:04 -0400 Francis Gerund via arch-general wrote:

I worry about if and how this will affect Arch. Any opinions?

On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 11:31 AM, Kyle Bassett via arch-general < arch-general@archlinux.org> wrote:

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This is insane! Apple set the precedent with smart phones, but now we have Trusted Computing Creep in desktops. Used are losing further control of their own devices.

Ugh.

On 28 Sep 2016 11:27, "D C via arch-general" wrote:

Wow, is MS desperate or something?

On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 11:24 AM, Francis Gerund via arch-general wrote:

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https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/16/09/21/1516230/ microsoft-signature-pc- requirements-now-blocks-linux-installation-reports?sbsrc=md

It was nice while it lasted.

<sigh>

-- Public_Key_Block.asc

This won't really affect Arch any more than any other new hardware missing a driver, because that's all it really is (source: [1]). This hardware won't be usable until someone (either a someone with knowledge and free time or Lenovo or Intel) provides a driver for this hardware. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/53ri0m/warning_microsoft_signature_p... -- Simon Doppler (dopsi) W: https://dopsi.ch AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/account/dopsi GitHub: https://github.com/dopsi PGP: EB36 7755 7EE8 B2A1 F6C4 907E F0D6 8494 7E78 9926

That or buy an open architecture device. The new computer I have is an open architecture computer for that very reason and I bought that last year. On Wed, 28 Sep 2016, Martin K?hne via arch-general wrote:

Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 14:55:54 From: Martin K?hne via arch-general To: General Discussion about Arch Linux Cc: Martin K?hne Subject: Re: [arch-general] Microsoft Signature PC Requirements Now Blocks Linux Installation

On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 5:35 PM, Francis Gerund via arch-general wrote:

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I worry about if and how this will affect Arch. Any opinions?

It's a thing people have to be wary about. Average arch users may have similar laziness with regards to what their hardware requirements are as users of other distros - we're so used to have stuff just working. So the only advice I can give, if you should figure out you buy a new device, save your receipt so you get your money back.

cheers! mar77i

--

The FSF has a directory of hardware that respects geek's freedom [0]. I've recently been on a UK based liberated hardware seller, but hell I can't dig up the link right now. cheers! mar77i [0] http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom

I would personally recommend the Project Sputnik hardware from Dell http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/555/campaigns/xps-linux-laptop?c=us&l=en&s=biz, in particular the XPS 13 Developer Edition .They put a decent amount of effort into making sure the BIOS and firmware at least work with the latest version of Ubuntu and mainline these for the most part. Worst comes to worst, you can just repackage the stuff from Ubuntu but I'd say pretty much everything is working as well as it should on mainline Arch today. On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 3:55 PM, Maxwell Anselm via arch-general < arch-general@archlinux.org> wrote:

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Do you Have any pointer to good opensource hardware ?

Not exactly open-source/FSF-endorsed but https://system76.com/ sells laptops with Ubuntu-preinstalled so those are also guaranteed to run Arch.

I passively +1 to creating a wiki page for the time being. While it's worth mentioning the good parts as we listed them in this thread, it's also important to list bad parts and link the intel/lenovo debacle, somehow. Also, I might go and put whatever broadcom wifi interfaces on that list that failed me in the past (insert a poorly chosen list of swear words here). cheers! mar77i

On Thu, 29 Sep 2016 09:54:17 +0200 Christian Kruse wrote:

Hi,

Maxwell Anselm via arch-general writes:

...

...

Do you Have any pointer to good opensource hardware ?

Not exactly open-source/FSF-endorsed but https://system76.com/ sells laptops with Ubuntu-preinstalled so those are also guaranteed to run Arch.

Germany has such a company as well:

http://www.tuxedocomputers.com/

They're selling devices with either Ubuntu or ElementaryOS pre-installed. I bought a InfinityBook, it works pretty well and flawless.

UK has something like that, too:

https://www.entroware.com/store/

They sell devices with Ubuntu pre-installed.

But note that all that is not open source hardware (as mentioned above). Also I'm not getting the point in buying such hardware -- there is some linux distribution preinstalled, but that's it I guess. Or am I missing something? If you want open source hardware, I recommend looking at - the EOMA68 project - Olimex - upcoming Talos Workstation by Raptor Engineering - maybe devices supported by libreboot Regards, Merlin -- Merlin Büge

On Thu, 29 Sep 2016 10:15:19 +0200, Martin Kühne via arch-general wrote:

Whoever makes a start with the wiki page will likely refer to this thread as a reference.

And perhaps http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/ however, sometimes such lists are tricky. Sometimes hardware is mentioned as Linux compatible and they forget one from 4 revisions that isn't. I experienced this for a 56K modem. It's also possible that something works with Linux, but doesn't provide all available features, such as for professional RME audio cards. Regards, Ralf

On Thu, 29 Sep 2016 10:06:29 +0200, Merlin Büge wrote:

On Thu, 29 Sep 2016 09:54:17 +0200 Christian Kruse wrote:

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Germany has such a company as well:

http://www.tuxedocomputers.com/

But note that all that is not open source hardware (as mentioned above). Also I'm not getting the point in buying such hardware -- there is some linux distribution preinstalled, but that's it I guess. Or am I missing something?

You are right, but you also missed something. I've taken a look at an averaged tower PC. At first appearance the price seems to be ok, but after a further look I noticed that it's just the basic price, if you want at least one hard disk drive, you already need to pay more. How do they install an Ubuntu flavor, if you buy a computer without hard disk drive? In the end it's plain daylight robbery. DIY is significant less expensive, even if you should buy some hardware that shouldn't work with Linux, even if you then wouldn't get your money back and need to buy some hardware twice. Regards, Ralf

2016/09/29 17:44 "Christian Kruse" :

Hi,

Ralf Mardorf writes:

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You are right, but you also missed something. I've taken a look at an averaged tower PC. At first appearance the price seems to be ok, but after a further look I noticed that it's just the basic price, if you want at least one hard disk drive, you already need to pay more. How do they install an Ubuntu flavor, if you buy a computer without hard disk drive? In the end it's plain daylight robbery.

I don't think that this is true; generally their desktop systems come with a 500GB Segate HDD. And as I just checked I couldn't find a system without a disk; could you provide a link?

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DIY is significant less expensive, even if you should buy some hardware that shouldn't work with Linux, even if you then wouldn't get your money back and need to buy some hardware twice.

DIY was always less expensive and will always be. But it will cost you your time. I'm not willing to pay that price.

Best regards, -- Christian Kruse https://wwwtech.de/about

I generality don't hate DIY PC. I think it worth pay your time to do so.

On Thu, 29 Sep 2016 10:45:12 +0200, Christian Kruse wrote:

Ralf Mardorf writes:

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You are right, but you also missed something. I've taken a look at an averaged tower PC. At first appearance the price seems to be ok, but after a further look I noticed that it's just the basic price, if you want at least one hard disk drive, you already need to pay more. How do they install an Ubuntu flavor, if you buy a computer without hard disk drive? In the end it's plain daylight robbery.

I don't think that this is true; generally their desktop systems come with a 500GB Segate HDD. And as I just checked I couldn't find a system without a disk; could you provide a link?

My apologies, indeed, one drive is mounted, http://www.tuxedocomputers.com/Linux-Hardware/Linux-Computer-/-PCs/Alle-Syst... .

...

DIY is significant less expensive, even if you should buy some hardware that shouldn't work with Linux, even if you then wouldn't get your money back and need to buy some hardware twice.

DIY was always less expensive and will always be. But it will cost you your time. I'm not willing to pay that price.

DIY is usually not that significant less expensive as it is compared to tuxedocomputers.com. Regards, Ralf

On Thu, 29 Sep 2016 10:40:17 +0200, Christian Kruse wrote:

I can be sure that everything works with Linux.

For what purpose? Writing emails and surfing through the world wide web? How does their computers work, if you boot the kernel with "threadirqs" for real-time tasks? Will it cause less or much jitter for pro-audio, or CNC? That a machine "woks with Linux" is a vague claim. I bought hardware that was announced as Linux compatible. But it wasn't. I got my money back and my dealer removed the vendor's claim from the catalogue. There are often pitfalls such as, "you can connect a drive to this interface and it will work with Linux", missing the information "you can not boot a Linux from a drive that is connected to this interface" and similar issues. Regards, Ralf

On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 11:35 AM, Lukas Rose wrote:

I've been installing various Linux distributions on all kinds of notebooks and desktop-PCs for several years now, and I almost never had problems with hardware compatibility. Just follow the basic rules like avoid dedicated graphics if you don't need them, prefer Intel chips, and you're done! But even if you don't watch out for those, like many of the people did who brought me their computers, it still works - almost always. And the cases it didn't work out of the box were non-rolling-release Distros where most times a manual kernel upgrade to some more recent version fixed it. So I don't get why people are always calling for "Linux compatibility", most common hardware does work.

Honestly, though, "worked for you to this day" just doesn't cut it in this case. Just because you were lucky or never had to deal with really new hardware doesn't mean hardware compatibility is not an issue. And the rarer the case of incompatibility appears, the more disappointing it actually is when it hits you, and I guess we all agree that a bit of accumulated data about how to avoid them as much as possible is a good start. cheers! mar77i

On 29/09/16 11:19, Lukas Rose wrote:

"Worked for you this day", "you were lucky "…? I am talking of 100+ Linux installations on different hardware over the last few years. Not just one or two lucky cases. And sometimes it was very new hardware, like WiFi-Chips that were released a few weeks ago.

I would generally agree with you, but I recently bought a Lenovo Yoga laptop which came with Broadcom WIFI and Bluetooth that are not currently supported by Linux. So I would say you've been lucky up to now ;)

thinkpenguin.com is another open architecture vendor. On Thu, 29 Sep 2016, Christian Kruse wrote:

Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 03:54:17 From: Christian Kruse Reply-To: General Discussion about Arch Linux To: General Discussion about Arch Linux Subject: Re: [arch-general] Microsoft Signature PC Requirements Now Blocks Linux Installation

Hi,

Maxwell Anselm via arch-general writes:

...

...

Do you Have any pointer to good opensource hardware ?

Not exactly open-source/FSF-endorsed but https://system76.com/ sells laptops with Ubuntu-preinstalled so those are also guaranteed to run Arch.

Germany has such a company as well:

http://www.tuxedocomputers.com/

They're selling devices with either Ubuntu or ElementaryOS pre-installed. I bought a InfinityBook, it works pretty well and flawless.

UK has something like that, too:

https://www.entroware.com/store/

They sell devices with Ubuntu pre-installed.

Best regards,

--