Shop FAQ

I own #VIKINGS hardware. What happens to my warranty?

We continue to provide warranty of course! Devices were sold with a two to five year warranty (depending on the product), and we remain obliged to honour that. For those obligations the shop stays reachable to you. As before, we will keep treating you like a friend, and help beyond the contract where we reasonably can, in warranty or out of it.

Contact hello@vikings.net, the address on the warranty card or info letter that came with the device.

Why did you close the shop?

The shop opened in 2016 as a small proof of concept next to our main line of work, and it grew so much further than we expected. The aim was hand-picked, libre-friendly, easily repairable hardware, with serious support and a fair price. We got there early: FSF certification on some offers, and demand from day one.

We kept it going as long as we could do it properly. But the past couple of month have been painful, new hardware that is libre-friendly hasn't really taken on despite the efforts of so many, stock of the loved Thinkpad line from ~2008-2014 has largely dried up, and the remaining legacy options are even longer in the tooth. We do not rent our ethics out, not even to the loudest bidder. So continuing would have meant selling newer machines we no longer fully stand behind (like some of our competitors do). We would rather accept that there's good timing for everything in life, and shut down cleanly and in honour, like a proper Viking would.

Good one. Why did you really close the shop? Don't you need $$$$€€€, for fuck's sake?

Easy on the expletives, young Padawan ;—) We understand why that would annoy you. We would feel the same. Sure, we like getting stuff that gets us stuff, but we like it less than selling things we do not believe in.

That seems to be a rare preference these days, when almost everyone will sell the next person whatever still moves. A little less income, and a clean record with the people who trusted us. We will take that trade.

Where do I get a new libre-friendly laptop?

We are not aware of any new laptop that is libre-friendly in the sense we used or FSF's RYF applies. Most of what still qualifies is historical hardware given another life with coreboot, or derivatives such as Skulls.

You are not entirely out of options. Some newer machines are clearly better than others, even if they are not fully libre. The MNT Reform is modular, repairable, and open where it counts. A good fit for many people, depending on what you actually need.

Older ThinkPads, roughly four or five generations back, are still on the second-hand market. On many of them IME, PSP, and similar blobs can be disabled or removed. That is a weekend flashing project, not a new-from-the-factory purchase. Their usability will range from excellent to acceptable, depending on your use-case.

New factory coreboot laptops are often not much better than ordinary hardware. Closed blobs still sit in critical subsystems, and, to our knowledge, even larger these days.

Where do I get a libre-friendly workstation or server?

Beats the frack out of us. Do let us know if you find something newer than 2018 that could be considered libre-/freedom-friendly.

POWER9 from Raptor Computing Systems from around 2018 would have been the recommendation, but support for that ISA is declining in many distros.