51–60 of 276 posts
I am Jeremy Soller, Principal Engineer at System76. Let me know if you have any questions. The source for this can be found here: https://github.com/system76/firmware-open There are instructions there for building and testing the firmware in QEMU, you do not need to have our hardware to try it out.
Will it be possible to install this open firmware on existing Galago/Darter laptops bought before this came out?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah
are there tools for parsing the firmware bin? are they a threat vector? is it like a settings file?
Besides a hex editor, probably not.
> are they a threat vector?
As much as any other opaque software (i.e. not FOSS or otherwise transparent around source code auditing by arbitrary third parties). That is, in short: yes.
> is it like a settings file?
No, it's more like the operating system for the wireless card itself, running on the card's own microprocessor.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why no AMD CPUs? I just don't buy anything Intel and I'm for some time looking at System76, but each time I go build a setup I remember why I gave up the last time around. Also, with the price difference between the two it would be a more interesting hardware using this difference to acquire more RAM.
I suspect it's because AMD's resurgence is so recent and these things need long lead times for procurement, development, and validation. I'm less familiar with laptops: Do Intel and AMD CPUs even share a common socket?
I wonder if that's working for them as a core selling point. Does having an open firmware really steer people into buying one of these laptops? I'm curious to hear from an actual buyer on why they purchased that laptop when there are so many linux friendly options available. For web dev I've been running ubuntu on a virtualbox on my macbook pro for years. It's pretty much just as fast as my fully specced out desktop.…
I can only speak for myself, but I was thinking of getting a Galago Pro around a month and a half ago, and got cold feet because it wasn't quite as open as I wanted it to be. I ended up waiting because I don't need a new dev laptop yet.
This announcement has cemented that I'm going to get one, although I'm going to wait for a bit to let their first users of the new firmware work out the bugs. ;) System76 has a really good reputation for QA, so I'm sure it will be a quick process.
It's my impression that System76 is genuinely committed to free (libre) software, but have pragmatically balanced that with a commitment to creating a high-quality product. As other have said, I want a plug and play Linux experience. Ideally it would be completely libre, but none of the completely libre options out there are good enough (particularly, with hardware integration) for me to justify the loss in productivity. This is a good almost-completely-libre option which fits my needs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why no AMD CPUs? I just don't buy anything Intel and I'm for some time looking at System76, but each time I go build a setup I remember why I gave up the last time around. Also, with the price difference between the two it would be a more interesting hardware using this difference to acquire more RAM.
Relatedly: why no AMD GPUs? AMD's much more cooperative with Linux than Nvidia is or probably ever will be at this rate, and performance is great even with the FOSS drivers (as I've observed on both my Dell Precision 7510 and the Threadripper + Radeon rig I built about a year ago). Like, it's kinda maddening that "the" household name in Linux laptops (if there is such a thing) has zero laptops with an AMD GPU as an o…
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21170765
In that discussion, several other good Linux notebooks were also discussed, including System 76. But it was reported there that the quality is quite bad:
> but the quality is reportedly bad (flaky hardware, too-fast power drain, reflash bios to toggle discrete graphics (!), slow support) https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/review-system76-oryx-pr...
> Mine is in the System 76 repair shop right now for the third time. Extremely unsatisfied with Oryx Pro materials and build quality. Oh it's back for the third time because when they replaced the top case last time, they installed a defective touch pad. Never again.
I wonder if that has been improved, as I'm really interested in a high quality Linux notebook.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
With nonCPU blobs there is (usually) a memory boundary. Would the bus between the devices be exploitable? Perhaps, but at least it could be hardened, which is not the case with the ME controller. How much the ME controller actually participates in the boot process is irrelevant as long as its position within it can completely and undetectably compromise the entire system. You should look at the libreboot project and…
This might be a stupid question, but would adoption of RISC V help fix this issue?
Naming is hard, but almost anything would be better. If in doubt I'd go with something bland like "System76 Linux."
I bring this up because for the past 20 years closed silos and locked down platforms have won almost entirely on the basis of UI/UX and polish. System76's hardware looks good at first glance, but everything else matters too. An OS name that says "this is a toy and will be useless for real work" is a real problem for wider adoption. Even worse the name tends to transfer via mental association onto the hardware, conveying the idea that this laptop will fall apart.
I am Jeremy Soller, Principal Engineer at System76. Let me know if you have any questions. The source for this can be found here: https://github.com/system76/firmware-open There are instructions there for building and testing the firmware in QEMU, you do not need to have our hardware to try it out.
I am Jeremy Soller, Principal Engineer at System76. Let me know if you have any questions. The source for this can be found here: https://github.com/system76/firmware-open There are instructions there for building and testing the firmware in QEMU, you do not need to have our hardware to try it out.
Recognized the username. Blown away that the same person leading Redox-OS[0] is also in a leadership role at System76!!! [0] https://github.com/redox-os/redox/graphs/contributors