Description

ThinkPad T480 support was recently added, in the Libreboot 20241206 release. This is a new product, replacing the older Libreboot T440p/W541/X230; T440p/W541 was Intel 4th gen (Haswell) and X230 was 3rd gen (Ivybridge), whereas T480 is 8th gen (Kabylake Refresh). Libreboot T480 has nicer features such as NVMe SSDs and it can have *much* more memory installed. It also charges with USB-C, which is standard nowadays. NVMe SSD installed by default, offering much faster speeds than SATA (32Gbps on NVMe, 6Gbps on SATA). T480S (S model) may be provided, if you choose 32GB RAM; regular T480 (non-S model) if you choose 64GB RAM. T480/T480s are virtually identical, essentially the same hardware design, so Minifree will ship either of the two.

Shipping worldwide! Minifree ships to USA, Canada, South America, Europe, Australia, Asia, and everywhere else (unless sanctioned, e.g. no Russia shipping), shipping globally from Minifree’s lab in the United Kingdom. The correct power cable is provided (e.g. USA, EU, UK), for each customer; the power supply is 120-240V auto-switching, so it works in every country.

Running free/opensource software; Libreboot pre-installed (free BIOS/UEFI replacement), along with Debian Linux, or your choice of other distro, or a BSD operating system of your choice (e.g. FreeBSD)! ThinkPad T480/T480s support was added in the Libreboot 20241206 release, which came out on 6 December 2024. Libreboot provides greater security and faster boot speeds, when compared to the original vendor UEFI firmware.

This is a high-performance workstation based on heavy modification of the Lenovo ThinkPad T480 and T480S, running free/opensource BIOS replacement Libreboot plus Debian Linux (operating system), other Linux distro or a BSD of your choice (e.g. FreeBSD). Full driver support in Linux and BSD operating systems, including WiFi. Libreboot is maintained and funded directly by Minifree; Minifree’s owner (Leah Rowe) is also the founder of Libreboot. Your purchase funds Libreboot. Source code for Libreboot and Debian Linux are provided with all orders.

The benefit of Libreboot is that since it’s a free/opensource project, releases can be audited so you have a greater assurance that there are no intentional firmware-based backdoors in your system; coreboot, which Libreboot uses for initialisation, is regularly audited. Ideologically, Libreboot provides greater *software freedom*, which is the main purpose of Libreboot. The Intel ME is *disabled* after early bring-up, using me_cleaner. Libreboot has other benefits such as faster boot speeds and greater customisation, and advanced security features you can’t get anywhere else, such as the easy ability to boot LUKS2-encrypted systems directly, even if /boot is encrypted, by using the GNU GRUB payload included in flash

Your freedom. Your Libreboot.

Most people use proprietary boot firmware, even if they use free operating systems. Many computers today are known to contain malware, chief among them being Intel’s Management Engine (ME). Our systems are different. Your Libreboot system will *never* spy on you, and it will never leak your data to anyone. Your privacy and security is critical. You are the owner of your machine. We believe free software is a fundamental right, something that everyone *must* have.

Your Libreboot T480 obeys you, and nobody else! It’s Libreboot inside! The Intel ME is *disabled* on every machine, using me_cleaner which disables the ME after BringUp – this is done for your security, and privacy. You have the freedom to tinker with every part of the machine; full source code is also available, for Libreboot and the installed Linux/BSD operating system of your choice.

Additionally: this machine makes use of the excellent deguard utility, alongside me_cleaner. Deguard disables the Intel Boot Guard, and configures the ME so that you could run unsigned code on it; this means that you actually have a greater degree of control over the ME coprocessor, if such work is further explored for future Libreboot releases. At present, Libreboot simply disables the ME with me_cleaner, and applies the deguard hack.

Your purchase will directly provide funding for further Libreboot development. Minifree directly funds the Libreboot project.

Debian Linux is secure, easy to use

*Encrypted* Debian GNU+Linux is pre-installed to keep your data secure, with *full* driver support including WiFi. Other distros or a BSD (e.g. OpenBSD, FreeBSD) can be preinstall on your request, for no additional cost. Libreboot is a Free Software project, which replaces proprietary BIOS/UEFI firmware. These sales are conducted to fund development of Libreboot, lead by Leah Rowe who is Libreboot’s founder and lead developer, and the director of Minifree Ltd.

By default, Minifree ships with *encrypted* Debian (KDE Plasma desktop environment).

Debian is a solid, robust OS with a strong security team and release engineering team behind it. It’s the bedrock of the Linux world, upon which many distros are built. It has a proven track record of reliability, and it’s easy to use for most new people while being extremely flexible for advanced users. It’s an all-round good default choice, which is why Minifree ships it.

More info about Debian can be found here: https://www.debian.org/

Qubes is also compatible; please request this specifically, in the textbox on the checkout page.

WiFi upgrade available!

WiFi upgrade available (Intel AX210 card): available for a fee. Offers much faster speeds. It supports the newer 802.11ax, 802.11ac and 802.11n standards. See: https://minifree.org/product/intel-ax210/

Intel ME disabled! Intel Boot Guard also disabled!

The Intel Management Engine is entirely *disabled*, using me_cleaner. See: https://github.com/corna/me_cleaner/wiki/How-does-it-work%3F

Intel Boot Guard has been disabled, using deguard. The Intel Boot Guard normally prevents coreboot, because it enforces cryptographic signature verification on the bootblock; vendors can choose whether to enable it during manufacturing. The *deguard* utility disables it on MEv11, by exploiting a known bug that permits unsigned code execution on the ME. You can then lock your flash, if you wish, which offers a greater security guarantee in our opinion. Security is a good thing, but only when it’s under the user’s control. Libreboot is under *your* control.

Why use *these* machines?

These machines are provided because we in the Free Software movement believe Free Software is a *right* that everyone must have; free refers to freedom. It is software for which source code is available that you can freely use, study, modify and share without restriction. These machines are intended for security-conscious people who value the ideals of the free software movement, and want something easy to use that is in the control of the *user* (not the vendor). Free software is a global movement that started in the 1980s with the BSD and GNU projects, but its roots go all the way back to the very early days of computing; free software is used and developed today by millions of people, and it runs some of the most critical infrastructure on the internet.

Many people nowadays use bloated, inefficient software, a description that often applies to proprietary software; Free Software isn’t beholden to corporate greed, and many of the people who work on it care passionately about writing the most well-audited, high quality code. Modern versions of Windows use *gigabytes* of RAM, whereas a Linux/BSD system with a lightweight (yet modern) desktop environment will use far less than that, aswell as few CPU cycles and disk I/O; in other words, Linux systems can have much lower system requirements. Minifree shares in this *lightweight* software design philosophy. Libreboot itself (lead by the same person who owns Minifree) is designed to be as simple as possible, in terms of project infrastructure, build system, and actual coreboot configuration, providing firmware that boots as quickly as possible, and with a simple user interface (SeaBIOS and/or GRUB payload) that most people can just use, intuitively. Libreboot *heavily* patches the various upstream projects used, such as coreboot and GNU GRUB, fixing various upstream issues and providing more reliable operation for the user.

Libreboot releases focus on stability, providing well-tested firmware that is rock-solid on all of the supported hardware, and with a unified user interface across (where possible) all boards. That means, if you learn to use one Libreboot system, you can most likely use another with little fuss. Libreboot does away with nasty anti-features such as UEFI SecureBoot (nasty because it makes using free operating systems harder), instead implementing its own optional security methods that are completely within the user’s control, such as GPG signature checking of your Linux kernel from GRUB, which runs directly in the flash (which you can write-protect, if you wish), or the ability to have *true* Full Disk Encryption, including /boot. In *most* setups (on x86 hardware), Libreboot directly boots GNU GRUB from the flash (with its own config file), which is configured to automatically find and boot your distro’s own GRUB, EXTLINUX or SYSLINUX configuration (and manual configuration is possible), even in cases where it resides in an EFI System Partition (ESP), or a btrfs sub volume – GRUB is extremely powerful in this setup, as a *coreboot payload*, more flexible than any standard BIOS- or UEFI-based setup, and it works because Linux/BSD systems are able to run directly on bare metal, without calling into BIOS/UEFI. Libreboot provides a direct video framebuffer, that any operating system can use if it supports Kernel Mode Setting (all Linux/BSD systems do nowadays). This is a much cleaner way to boot your operating system, and GRUB is highly efficient.

A coreboot payload called *SeaBIOS* is also provided, which you can optionally use (useful for BSD bootloaders, prior to loading the BSD kernels). SeaBIOS implements a standard x86 PC BIOS, whereas GRUB provides *multiboot* functionality to directly boot a Linux kernel (along with drivers for the disk, filesystem, etc – and an often overlooked but extremely powerful user shell, that behaves very similarly to a full BASH shell with many commands available – more info available in the GRUB documentation, though Minifree configures these systems to Just Work so you can simply turn them on and use them).

Libreboot *even* includes MemTest86+ directly in the flash! You can boot it from the GRUB or SeaBIOS payload. No more messing about with bootable USB media. It comes preinstalled! Coreboot is very different than proprietary firmware, in that you can run whatever you want. You’re not restricted to whatever the vendor gives you. You could *even* compile your own OS (e.g. Linux with busybox/musl) and put it in the flash, if you wanted to, and run whatever applications you want, without ever touching your SSD; chainload it from the GRUB payload, or reconfigure coreboot to load Linux directly (from flash).

Jargon aside, one thing that many people will ask is: does Libreboot work with standard Linux/BSD systems, without modification? The answer is yes. Minifree uses *standard* Linux/BSD installer images, provided by the respective upstreams (e.g. Debian, Archlinux, FreeBSD). You can use your Libreboot machine more or less just as you would a typical BIOS/UEFI system; Windows is also compatible, though we recommend that you stick to Linux/BSD, for your freedom. More information is available on the Libreboot documentation.

These are the same machines used for Libreboot development. Leah Rowe, the founder and lead developer of Libreboot, also runs Minifree. Sales fund the project, and these machines are *used* by Leah day to day for all tasks. Many people are surprised when they turn on a Libreboot machine, and it gets to the bootloader (e.g. GRUB) in a few seconds or less, booting faster than even a brand new (non-Libreboot) machine. This is the power of Libreboot, and free software in general, in allowing the hardware to run *much* more efficiently.

Put simply: we want to live in a world where everyone can easily and comfortably use *free software*, liberated from the shackles of proprietary software. We want to live in a world where your property is *your* property; extended to computing, this makes free software a fundamental right that *everyone* *must* have.

Libreboot also provides a U-Boot payload these days on x86-64, present since Libreboot 20241206; it will be further developed in subsequent Libreboot releases. Not enabled on every board (currently disabled on the T480), and provides a sensible UEFI implementation. Libreboot still recommends the GRUB payload for the forseeable future, as it’s more stable and provides a lot more security features.

Information about the product

If you pick 32GB RAM, Minifree *may* randomly ship the T480S (S model); it has onboard 4GB or 8GB RAM, and an additional DIMM slot where Minifree will install a 32GB DDR4 module. If you pick 64GB, you will always receive the T480 (non-S model, which has 2 DIMM slots on board). T480/T480S are virtually identical, except that the T480S has a larger internal battery and no external battery; the T480 has an external battery, and can have an additional (read: smaller than on T480S) internal battery. Electrically, and in terms of coreboot code, they are virtually identical and have the same CPUs, same slots (external peripherals e.g. USB devices), same screens, same keyboards, and they are visually almost identical except that the S model is *slightly* thinner.

Also: this is the 1080p model (1920×1080). If you require a screen upgrade, please contact Minifree and a custom price will be provided for such an upgrade; 1440p and 4k screens are possible. Also: this is the *non-touch* model, and the screen upgrades are typically ill advised if using the screen cable for touchpad models, due to electrical differences. Also! Libreboot enables the Intel GPU by default; the Nvidia dGPU is disabled, where present. This is because native (libre) graphics initialisation is available in coreboot, for the Intel graphics, so Libreboot uses that exclusively. Minifree *may* ship the touch model, if it happens to have a touch model, and these models are also 1080p/FHD.

Several video connectors are available for external monitors, if you wish; HDMI and USB-C video outputs both work. If using USB-C video, note that you will need an appropriate hub for that (it’ll show up as a DisplayPort in xrandr).

NOTE: Minifree ships the Core i5-8250U at a minimum but may ship highter. It will never ship lower; on T480, 2-core i5-7200U/7300U are available, but Minifree will not ship 2-core. 2-core is so 2009. Quad-core is a requirement these days, for any reasonable level of computational speed.

Included accessories

• Battery included, fully tested
• AC-DC adapter (charger) included (100-240V auto-switching, works in all countries) – NOTE: the charger port is actually USB-C so you can use any power supply you like, rated at least 65W. Minifree will supply a compatible power supply that works in your country.
• UK, EU or US power cable included, depending on country (USB-C power suppply). These days it’s fashionable for vendors *not* to provide even charger cables, let alone power supplies, but that’s lame. Minifree will always provide a power supply, unless you ask us not to (for example if you have a nice USB-C power hub already).
  

Laptop specifications:

• 3.4GHz Intel Core i5-8250U processor
• Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics 620
• Screen: 14″ 1920×1080 TFT LCD (upgrades available)
• Gigabit ethernet as standard
• Ports: Dual mic/headphone jack, RJ-45 ethernet, HDMI, USB-C, Thunderbolt, 3x USB 3.0, SD card reader, (not all models, and smartcard reader untested) smartcard reader – NOTE: Thunderbolt not currently working in Libreboot 20241206, but you can use DisplayPort video output on the USB-C and Thunderbolt connectors. ALSO: Sim card slot in the battery bay (can do LTE).
• Backlight (brightness) control is fully functional in Libreboot on this laptop; buttons not working in Libreboot 20241206, but you can control the backlight in software e.g. slider control in KDE plasma.
• Battery: Up to 65Wh; T480 can have an additional internal 24Wh battery. Power consumption depends on use; on light usage, except around 10 hours at a minimum (can be much longer on very light use). On heavy use you might expect about 3-5 hours (very heavy CPU usage and so on).
• WiFi: Intel 8265 AC 802.11ac card. — Intel AX210 upgrade available
  
• Memory: max 36GB/40GB on T480S, 64GB on T480. DDR4-2400.
• More specifications shown here: https://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/ThinkPad/ThinkPad_T480/ThinkPad_T480_Spec.PDF
• T480S (S model) specs: https://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/ThinkPad/ThinkPad_T480s/ThinkPad_T480s_Spec.pdf
• NOTE: Lenovo spec sheet says 16GB max per slot, implying 32GB RAM max. However, 32GB per slot works, making for up to 64GB RAM (36GB ar 40GB on T480S, S model, because of onboard soldered 4GB/8GB being present alongside a single DIMM slot, whereas the regular T480 has two DIMM slots)

When new Libreboot versions are released, it is possible to update to those newer versions using software (no disassembling required). Full instructions are provided.