Re: [lp-ca-on] Respects Your Freedom hardware, has anyone bought some?

[Blaise Alleyne]

On 07/01/16 06:59 PM, Sergio Durigan Junior wrote:
> On Thursday, January 07 2016, Blaise Alleyne wrote:
> 
>> On 07/01/16 05:18 PM, Matt Lee wrote:
>>> [...] I'm also considering using an X200 and moving to a desktop for my 
>>> daily driver
>>> so I can have a free BIOS but the performance of a modern computer. [...]
>>>
>>
>> That touches on two questions that I've been wondering over the past few 
>> weeks:
>>
>> 2. How much of a noticeable difference does a modern i3/i5/i7 CPU make 
>> compared
>> to the X200's Core 2 Duo P8400 2.26GHz processor? (Or, for what kinds of 
>> usage
>> would you actually notice the difference?)
> 
> Heh, I've had a Core 2 Duo notebook (T400 or something?) from 2010 to
> mid-2014.  I still remember how I felt when I switched to an i7...  Not
> that my Emacs became faster (although it *starts* faster), but now I
> manage to compile GDB *much* faster, and that made a difference to my
> workflow (just because I compile stuff many times a day).  Things start
> faster, and some of them run faster as well, but that's also because my
> RAM has improved too.
> 

I wonder how much of that was attributable to CPU?

I've done slight RAM upgrades in the past (from 1 GB to 4 GB) and noticed a good
difference. But when I moved my X60 to an SSD... the difference was sooo huge
that I couldn't bare to use my T61 with an SSD anymore.

>> Other specs from Minifree machines are pretty modern, e.g. up to 240 GB SSD 
>> (or
>> 1 TB HDD), up to 8 GB of RAM...
>>
>> My main hesitation over buying a Libreboot X200 is spending ~$1000 CAD to 
>> still
>> have an ancient CPU. (And also because I've already put an SSD in my X60, 
>> could
>> do the Libreboot installation service on it, etc.)
>>
>> What kind of computing would the more modern processors make a big 
>> difference for?
> 
> I know you do a lot of your music stuff on your computer, so I guess
> you'd feel a big difference if you moved to something more modern.  If
> you also need to compile stuff regularly, you'd also notice an
> improvement.
> 

When I compile stuff, it's more often on a remote server than on my laptop. For
music, it's latency that matters most, and I've got my X60 running really well.
I think the RAM upgrade would make a bigger difference, in terms of being able
to run more applications and plugins. Though I have the impression that a faster
CPU would make a bigger difference for signal processing, e.g. if I'm running a
lot of plugins at the same time processing a realtime (or low latency) sound
signal...


> I totally understand your concern: the price is very expensive.


I think the move from 3GB (X60) to 8GB (X200) would be huge for me, as I feel
that pain often and have to watch how many applications I have open. But $1000
is a lot for that upgrade... I feel like if I'm going to spend that much money,
I'd rather spend even $2000 but get 16GB of RAM, a modern CPU, etc.... but then
that goes back to the whole Libreboot question!

> Maybe the best option would be to flash libreboot yourself on the machine.
> Actually, we could do the flashing together...  I would totally want to
> participate/help in this.  I just don't have the machine (yet)...
> 

I think I will definitely do this, even if my X60 doesn't remain my primary
machine. I'm still tempted by the installation service though, because they
cover the wireless card replacement also, etc. But maybe we could do that
together too? haha

The ancient CPU (and already owning an X60) is the one thing that's stopped me
from buying the X200 in the past week... but the Libreboot attractiveness is the
one thing that has me still seriously considering the idea over ThinkPenguin or
Purism options...