Linux-friendly laptops?

[oshunluvr]

As someone who worked in the industry for 25+ years and travels internationally every year (sometimes more than once) I can say with confidence that all of the so-called security measures the TSA subjects us all to are farcical. Not one damn thing actually helps. It's all a smoke and mirrors show to fool the generally un-thinking public into believing all that money being spent does something beneficial.

If they really want to make LAX and other airports like that safe, they'd have to remove the vehicles and the commercial businesses off the air field. Put the security checkpoints well away from the terminals too.

The first time I exited an aircraft in a foreign land was Frankfurt Germany in 1987. The very first person I saw was a soldier conspicuously carrying an obviously fully automatic assault rifle. Now that instilled a sense of security.

[SteveRiley]

all of the so-called security measures the TSA subjects us all to are farcical. Not one damn thing actually helps. It's all a smoke and mirrors show to fool the generally un-thinking public into believing all that money being spent does something beneficial.

Relevant... "The psychology of security" by Bruce Schneier (a gentleman whose writings have greatly influenced my own thoughts on security)

The first time I exited an aircraft in a foreign land was Frankfurt Germany in 1987. The very first person I saw was a soldier conspicuously carrying an obviously fully automatic assault rifle. Now that instilled a sense of security.

I've seen such displays throughout Asia and Europe. My reaction is the opposite: I don't like being around loaded guns at all, and seeing people in camouflage (at an airport? WTF?) stomping around with rifles makes me very nervous.

[Feathers McGraw]

... seeing people in camouflage (at an airport? WTF?) stomping around with rifles makes me very nervous.

But... how else are they supposed to hide in a pot plant?

[SteveRiley]

Wait...you have pot plants at LHR now? Lucky you! I'm still waiting for the first weed retailer to open here in Seattle. Stupid Denver, they beat us to it.

[Teunis]

I'm a near-always laptop user, the W520 is connected to a nice 24"monitor for photo editing and watching video's.
I travel a lot and want all my stuff with me so I replaced the optical drive with a 1TB disk in a caddy.
And have a couple of 2.5" USB drives with me for back up's, 36MP pics in RAW format take space, up to 100MB a shot...
They don't dangle as I only use them like once a day, in case of a power failure or a lightning strike I don't want them to get zapped together with the computer.
At home I have a couple of 3.5"drives for further redundancy.
My AMV Fritz!box modem has an option for a remotely accessible NAS but a few days ago several of these modems were compromised and awaiting the outcome of the investigations (and a firmware update) I've closed port 443.

So yeah, I could imagine a Chromebook with Kubuntu and a USB3 disk.

[SteveRiley]

You will need to disable Secure Boot on your Chromebook before you can replace the operating system. Another wrinkle: unlike x86_64 hardware that allows you to re-enable Secure Boot after installing Linux, the ChromeBooks don't offer this. Once you replace the factory-installed operating system, you can't re-enable Secure Boot at all.

[GreyGeek]

That's VERY interesting to know, Steve. Thanks. I have a friend who recently purchased a Chrombook. If they ever ask me to install Kubuntu on it your info will be very useful.

[SteveRiley]

Should have mentioned this before.

Source: "Don't like Secure Boot? Don't buy a Chromebook" by Matthew Garrett.

[Feathers McGraw]

That's a decent article, thanks Steve! Interesting comments, too.

I didn't know that if you disable secureboot you will always get an "OS is untrusted" warning when you boot...as someone in the comments pointed out, rather like the unlocked icon on Android devices after you unlock the bootloader to flash a custom ROM.

I'm confused as to which Chromebooks use Coreboot and which use UEFI, I had previously thought they all used Corebooot?

[SteveRiley]

Certain x86-based Chromebooks use a proprietary firmware based on UEFI. Other x86-based Chromebooks use Coreboot with a Das U-Boot payload. ARM-based Chromebooks use only U-Boot.

Source: Coreboot tutorial at OSCON 2013, slide six.

[Feathers McGraw]

Thanks!