Pinned Wiki Post with currently available computers in "hardware support"

A discussion with @Alan birthed a little proposal for the forum in my mind:

The HCL contains all the reports ever made, but in the forum we could
have a pined wiki-like post under “hardware support” where we list
laptops that are currently available for sale and have several positive
HCL reports/threads.

The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 could be the first candidate for R4.1

Since I help maintain the HCL I see all reports as they are made and
once several people are successfully using a machine and it’s currently
available for sale I could add it to the post and review maybe on a
monthly basis if they still are available.

Pro:

  • Users looking for available machines would have an (incomplete) place
    to start that is kept recent.

  • It would maybe even motivate more users to submit HCL
    reports/instructions as they want to see ‘their’ machine make the list

Contra:

  • It will never be complete

  • Some will see it as “sneaky” and selective advertisement (even though
    we would never link any merchant)

  • ???

7 Likes

Thats a good idea.

I quite like this idea and it addresses (much better) the issue I was trying to solve here.

I think this could even be something that could later be included in the website.

1 Like

I agree because it’s a very common request from new comers on this forum.

2 Likes

Another “contra” is that a specific machine might work perfectly now, but in a month, an update will completely break it. For certified hardware, a vendor pays the Qubes team to make sure that this won’t happen.

I like the idea overall. I think one problem is establishing standards to make sure that multiple trustworthy reports are needed to get a machine on the list.

As for merchants trying to sneakily get their machine on the list, maybe we could say that a recommended pathway for hardware vendors is to have a blog post about their own experience with Qubes and reassurance that they will monitor the situation. Then we could just link to their blogs. I have no experience with Starlabs and their laptops (I’m also not affiliated with them in any way), but I liked the fact that they went through the effort to check the compatibility of their laptops: Qubes 4.0.4 has been tested on the LabTop Mk III & IV – Star Labs®

might work perfectly now, but in a month, an update will completely
break it.

Does that happen? My lived and observed experience until now was always
the reverse: first it’s impossible or super hard to get Qubes installed
and then a few months later and it’s suddenly no big deal anymore.

establishing standards […] multiple trustworthy reports

I was thinking maybe three positive HCL reports? And of course there are
exceptions… like when a Qubes team member submits a positive HCL
report of an available machine, I’d take that on the list immediately.

merchants […] blog post about their own experience with Qubes
Sounds reasonable.

Starlabs

Cool!

1 Like

I believe I’ve seen reports on this forum where people claimed that some things worked with a 4.x kernel, but 5.x was no go.

One more suggestion, which would in particular help with this, is a link to a megathread for each machine that ends up on the list. This way if some issue arises there is a clear place to discuss it.

megathread for each machine that ends up on the list

Agree