...I had assumed you purchased a purism computer as they are the only
ones to have claimed to "disable" ME (entirely not true)
I have experience with the dell ordering process, it simply means that
in the ME settings menu it is set to "Disabled" which to intel means a
different thing than to you and I as it is still quite involved in the
boot process and is still lurking in the background.
They aren't being dishonest, you just misunderstood what it meant - they
provide that notification as many business users like to have it enabled
and in one touch configuration mode (ME would have been a really cool
feature for corporate IT departments if it was FOSS and located on a
physically removable eprom chip)
vPro is a marketing term for several corporate manageability features,
it is a set of modules that is loaded in to ME for remote access if the
license key is available on the system.
There are several blob free laptops including:
http://makezine.com/2014/01/08/building-an-open-source-laptop/
https://kosagi.com//w/index.php?title=Novena_Main_Page
https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/novena - finally a
crowdfunding project with realistic goals and a quality end result - Ima
get me one
"jwer...@chromium.org:
All Chromebooks based on Nvidia and Rockchip SoCs are 100% FOSS as far
as firmware goes (graphics acceleration is a different story, but you
can run them with software rendering). (Mediatek Chromebooks are 99.9%
FOSS, they just have a tiny power management controller with openly
available binary firmware.)""
But no unfortunately you aren't going to get a modern "mobile
workstation" type laptop that is blob free - if dell asks why you
canceled tell them that you want a blob free non-intel coreboot laptop
(the CSR wont know what you are talking about - but it will make you
feel better)
If you want IOMMU laptop though I am not sure what to tell you at the
moment, I suppose the best choice would be an older thinkpad (blobs -
but no FSP) that is compatible with coreboot and trammel hudsons ME
nerfing project.
I guess you could always make your own mobile workstation "laptop" by
machining a case and sticking a blob free desktop motherboard in it,
kind of like a 1U laptop.
I used to like dell, their latitude/precision line was really great
(until they started H1B abuse and chasing apple with the thinness
obsession at the expense of everything else + bad island chiclet
keyboard + fisher price design + lousy 16:9 screen)
Whoa. Ok, hold on a sec. I did not buy a Purism computer, though not for those reasons -
putting a 28W TDP proc in a 15inch "workstation" is absurd to me. as is their
lack of a screen configuration. I hear your anger at the gap between what they promise
and what they deliver; I'm more displeased on the hardware side of things (though I do
like HW kill switches. I've looked into what they promise and understand very well that
they don't actually have a very free computer at all, especially on the bios/firmware
side.
What I actually ordered (and have now cancelled), was a Dell XPS 15". There is no vPro
option in the configure menu, though it does support VT-d and SLAT. I've read all of Joanna's
papers, and understand the concerns about Intel ME very well. However, on the Dell order, it
claimed "ME Disabled." Perhaps they simply meant that vPro/AMT/TXT was disabled, and
that was mine and Dell's fault for wishful thinking and false naming, respectively. Please see
linked photo: https://d.pr/Q0YZ
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