Purism Librem laptops are Linux based systems that promise better security and mostly deliver. As much as I liked the extra security I found support lacking. Purism is a small company and they are focused on the Librem phone. I like the idea and agree that the phone will replace laptops but at this time I need a working laptop. The support was decent but they ignore the documentation on their site which I repeatedly asked them to update with current information as we worked through various issues.
From the start the hardware had issues and during Covid it became impossible to get a replacement battery. Ultimately, I felt like I didn't get the value for my money.
If we can get secure boot working to only allow booting of binaries we vet it would provide the same security without the price tag.
It worked up until Kubuntu 24 at which the video become unworkable.
I paid a premium to get the Librem hardware from Purism. This premium affords me hardware switches for mic+camera and wireless (bluetooth + wifi). I can turn them off and know that they are really off. Software cannot turn them back on. In addition, the system removes most of the black box vendor code for booting up. The firmware (BIOS) has been replaced with a specialized Linux to minimize risk from 3rd party actors and backdoors.
The hard drive is huge so I've got multiple partitions. At first I didn't have anything encrypted but now that I have the smart card setup working I am migrating all systems to using LUKS+librem key. I have installed the heads beta bios replacement. I now have pureboot working. The system validates the boot files and then uses the librem key to unlock the root partition.
I'm tired of fighting with PureOS so I'm wiping it and replacing with Kubuntu. I can get even more smartcard features working with Kubuntu plus all of the other stuff that PureOS would not do. I will try PureOS again when they release another version but given its limitations I suspect that it will never be my primary working system. An informal poll I posted to the Purism forums suggested only half of the people there use PureOS long term.
Would I buy another Purism product? Probably not. I don't think the premium I paid was worth the value I get. I can get most of the other security features at half the price with other vendors. Do I trust Asus or Lenovo as much as Purism? No, but is that trust worth paying twice the price? Maybe after a run-in with the government I might feel differently but there are mutliple ways to compromise a system and using Librem hardware does not prevent all of them so it's only a little more secure for a lot more money.
My other big gripe with Purism is that they are a small company and don't seem to have the manpower to support their ambitions. They are promoting and working on the librem 5 phone while the documentation and development for the laptops have stalled. I have repeatedly posted in forums and emailed them about outdated documentation--all having been ignored. Consequently, I'm building out my own docs and working with upstream projects such as heads. (That is another story as Purism is one of the key players in that project also.)