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System76 Will Ship Linux Laptops With Coreboot-Based Open-Source Firmware

forbes.com

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Re: System76 Will Ship Linux Laptops With Coreboot-Based Open-Source Firmware

#71

Post by hlandau »

jackpot51 wrote: post #5
kop316 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello! With only needing the Intel FSP, does that disable the Intel ME? And what other peripherals need closed firmware? You also are not here: https://www.coreboot.org/users.html I say that because I have been in the market for a laptop, and I am looking for a free(dom) based laptop. I looked there and it led me down the path of a Purism laptop. Have you also thought about adding some sort of hardware kill switches…

The laptops which we will be delivering with open firmware will require the FSP and Intel ME, with the Intel GOP driver being an optional component to enable graphics acceleration in UEFI. The ME is disabled by way of a HECI message early in the boot process, so there are no runtime ME components similar to using the HAP bit on older ME versions. I will get https://www.coreboot.org/users.html updated as soon as possi…

This "disablement" is rather meaningless/misleading. The proprietary ME firmware is instrumental in the boot process and part of the chain of trust. Any 'disablement' of it (really, just a message sent to the ME firmware asking it politely to stop doing anything) after booting is after the horse has bolted.

Re: System76 Will Ship Linux Laptops With Coreboot-Based Open-Source Firmware

#72

Post by hlandau »

pgeorgi wrote: post #69
snagglegaggle wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The ME is disabled by way of a HECI message early in the boot process, so there are no runtime ME components similar to using the HAP bit on older ME versions. But why would I believe this? It seems you're selling snake oil. You can't really call it open firmware if there's still a lot of closed firmware in it.

> You can't really call it open firmware I can implement IEEE1275-1994 as fully closed sourced code and call it open firmware. > if there's still a lot of closed firmware in it. Downthread you mention "With nonCPU blobs there is (usually) a memory boundary", which I'll take as the boundary you made for yourself in these matters. With this boundary, the amount of "closed" firmware doesn't matter. The right 8 bytes at…

> I can implement IEEE1275-1994 as fully closed sourced code and call it open firmware.

Hardly. You can call it Open Firmware(TM), not open firmware.

Re: System76 Will Ship Linux Laptops With Coreboot-Based Open-Source Firmware

#73

Post by shmerl »

hlandau wrote: post #70
shmerl wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because AGESA is a blob. Once AMD will return to supporting coreboot, it would be a better option. There was recently some indication, that they are interested. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=AMD-EPYC...

Intel is equally blobby (FSP, ME).

Works with coreboot though somehow. AGESA prevents it as far as I know, since it does some stuff that coreboot has to be doing. I'm not that familiar with details, may be some coreboot experts can comment.

Re: System76 Will Ship Linux Laptops With Coreboot-Based Open-Source Firmware

#74

Post by pgeorgi »

hlandau wrote: post #72
pgeorgi wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't really call it open firmware I can implement IEEE1275-1994 as fully closed sourced code and call it open firmware. > if there's still a lot of closed firmware in it. Downthread you mention "With nonCPU blobs there is (usually) a memory boundary", which I'll take as the boundary you made for yourself in these matters. With this boundary, the amount of "closed" firmware doesn't matter. The right 8 bytes at…

> I can implement IEEE1275-1994 as fully closed sourced code and call it open firmware. Hardly. You can call it Open Firmware(TM), not open firmware.

I implemented OF over 15 years ago, and even back then the OF trademark had lapsed. Just tried again and I can't seem to find it.

Re: System76 Will Ship Linux Laptops With Coreboot-Based Open-Source Firmware

#75

Post by hlandau »

pgeorgi wrote: post #74
hlandau wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can implement IEEE1275-1994 as fully closed sourced code and call it open firmware. Hardly. You can call it Open Firmware(TM), not open firmware.

I implemented OF over 15 years ago, and even back then the OF trademark had lapsed. Just tried again and I can't seem to find it.

And? (TM) is used to denote unregistered trademarks, as opposed to (R) for registered trademarks.

Which is in any case irrelevant. Open Firmware != open firmware.

Re: System76 Will Ship Linux Laptops With Coreboot-Based Open-Source Firmware

#76

Post by hlandau »

shmerl wrote: post #73
hlandau wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel is equally blobby (FSP, ME).

Works with coreboot though somehow. AGESA prevents it as far as I know, since it does some stuff that coreboot has to be doing. I'm not that familiar with details, may be some coreboot experts can comment.

Coreboot integrates plenty of blobs via its blobs repository, so "Coreboot builds" does not imply "blob-free".

Re: System76 Will Ship Linux Laptops With Coreboot-Based Open-Source Firmware

#77

Post by isantop »

dochtman wrote: post #68
jackpot51 wrote: post #3

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.

What about oreboot, the Rust version of coreboot? I know you have a history with writing Rust code, so are you looking at oreboot as an alternative to coreboot for these purposes, as well?

I can't answer the technical side of that really well (IIRC something about targetting different things or something), but I wanted to comment that the name (Coreboot without the C) is genius. There is an Oreboot sticker on my fridge.

Re: System76 Will Ship Linux Laptops With Coreboot-Based Open-Source Firmware

#78

Post by techntoke »

albertzeyer wrote: post #56

Recently there was a discussion about Huawei MateBook X Pro, which also seems to be a great Linux notebook: 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 graph…

I know it isn't as mobile, but you may want to consider a Mini ITX with a portable screen.

Re: System76 Will Ship Linux Laptops With Coreboot-Based Open-Source Firmware

#79

Post by jackpot51 »

kop316 wrote: post #4
jackpot51 wrote: post #3

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.

Hello! With only needing the Intel FSP, does that disable the Intel ME? And what other peripherals need closed firmware? You also are not here: https://www.coreboot.org/users.html I say that because I have been in the market for a laptop, and I am looking for a free(dom) based laptop. I looked there and it led me down the path of a Purism laptop. Have you also thought about adding some sort of hardware kill switches…

The update to users.html was merged and will be there shortly: https://review.coreboot.org/c/homepage/+/35957/1

Re: System76 Will Ship Linux Laptops With Coreboot-Based Open-Source Firmware

#80

Post by awinter-py »

Avery3R wrote: post #22
awinter-py wrote: post #11

BYO software is my #3 consumer electronics question (after form factor & 'does it work at all') and drivers are an important frontier of this. SO TIRED of downloading blobs to have wifi on linux. AFAIK there isn't even a usb wifi dongle that has an open source wifi driver, much less a commercial wifi chipset. even companies that are in theory dedicated to quality are teetering on the edge of using software to enable…

>there isn't even a usb wifi dongle that has an open source wifi driver Qualcomm atheros?

they have OSS firmware for some devices, but not recent ones it seems like?

https://github.com/qca/open-ath9k-htc-firmware

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