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Lenovo vendor locking Ryzen CPUs with AMD PSB

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Re: Lenovo vendor locking Ryzen CPUs with AMD PSB

#191

Post by pabs3 »

coldtea wrote: post #167
userbinator wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the (already?) expiration of x86 patents, I'd love to see a "pure" x86 implementation without any of the user-hostile crap, and see how far the community can take it; but sadly, the RISC bandwagon is diverting attention away from that. A CPU without the user-hostile features but still able to run the massive existing software base would be ideal.

> I'd love to see a "pure" x86 implementation without any of the user-hostile crap, and see how far the community can take it; And who would make the tens of billions of investment to build a fab for that?

The existing fabs (TSMC, Samsung, GF etc and possibly even Intel under their new strategy) would probably make the chips you designed, if you pay for enough volume that is.

Re: Lenovo vendor locking Ryzen CPUs with AMD PSB

#192

Post by bmicraft »

coldtea wrote: post #167
userbinator wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the (already?) expiration of x86 patents, I'd love to see a "pure" x86 implementation without any of the user-hostile crap, and see how far the community can take it; but sadly, the RISC bandwagon is diverting attention away from that. A CPU without the user-hostile features but still able to run the massive existing software base would be ideal.

> I'd love to see a "pure" x86 implementation without any of the user-hostile crap, and see how far the community can take it; And who would make the tens of billions of investment to build a fab for that?

Not even amd/nvidia have their own fab at this point so it is probably safe to say you wouldn't need one for that either. You'd still need tons of cash of course but not quite as much.

Re: Lenovo vendor locking Ryzen CPUs with AMD PSB

#193

Post by pabs3 »

pjmlp wrote: post #135
alerighi wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RISCV is an open architecture. If a manufacturer does that, simply don't buy the processor from that manufacturer and buy it from another. All your software will still be compatible since it's the same architecture. Otherwise with x86 is more complex: you can choose between Intel and AMD (that has bought the license for the x86 instruction set - not something cheap to get), and both of them had their backdoor process…

Assuming that the software is all available from source and can be recompiled. Only the base RISC V is guaranteed thanks extensions. Also you are forgetting that just like Android and ARM, there are other forces at play that don't make it as easy in practice as FOSS advocates wish for.

Using qemu-user-static and similar you can run binaries from one arch on another arch.

Re: Lenovo vendor locking Ryzen CPUs with AMD PSB

#194

Post by saxonww »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #190
alerighi wrote: post #48

The problem is the AMD PSB functionality in itself. It should be considered malware like the Intel managament engine and thus refused by users. It's a second processor that runs a proprietary firmware signed by the vendor (that the user cannot modify or substitute entirely with a FLOSS alternative) that vendors can use do harm to the user. The AMD PSB can also be used to lock down a processor to enforce secure boot a…

I find it funny, how software, bugs, and possibly malicious intents are considered way differently than the same thing in practically any other industry. You buy a Toyota, they screw up the floormats, causing a potentially dangerous situation, millions of cars recalled, issue fixed. Volkswagen knows about an intentional 'screwup' (the exhaust cheating), they get caught, class actions, people return cars, get monetary…

The key differences are probably the "dangerous situation" and the "class action". Probably no one is going to die if they can't resell their CPU or install Linux on their laptop.

And regardless, for a class action suit there'd have to be a class, and as usual the vast majority of people buying Lenovo are not aware of this, wouldn't care if they did, or actually consider it a feature; this article is about some Lenovo machines that I think are sold primarily to businesses who would probably like it if the machine couldn't have end users overwrite the OS or fiddle with the hardware.

Re: Lenovo vendor locking Ryzen CPUs with AMD PSB

#195

Post by ahefner »

alerighi wrote: post #127
judge2020 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> RISCV architecture (a free architecture that doesn't include that shit) Surely you can't think the architecture itself is the differentiator. x86 didn't have all of this security 20 years ago, give engineers a few years of time to throw some locks on a risc-v chip and it'll be Enterprise Ready™ in no time.

RISCV is an open architecture. If a manufacturer does that, simply don't buy the processor from that manufacturer and buy it from another. All your software will still be compatible since it's the same architecture. Otherwise with x86 is more complex: you can choose between Intel and AMD (that has bought the license for the x86 instruction set - not something cheap to get), and both of them had their backdoor process…

I'm a little baffled how "licenses" for instruction sets became a thing. Old CPUs, anyone could clone them or write emulators for them. There's nothing particularly novel about an instruction set encoding, even if you have defined thousands of instructions, and the idea that they're worthy of patent protection (or whatever) is absurd.

Re: Lenovo vendor locking Ryzen CPUs with AMD PSB

#196

Post by fatboy93 »

Ysraes wrote: post #125
Shadonototra wrote: post #4

lenovo again.. when it's not shipping with rootkits (they did it twice!) and bloatware, it's about limiting HW a company to boycott

Is there any laptop manufacturer that doesn't ship complete bloat/mal/spy/ware in their products?

Probably not Framework or Apple? Haven't experienced these two yet, but don't almost all windows laptops come with McAfee? Removing it is a pain.

Re: Lenovo vendor locking Ryzen CPUs with AMD PSB

#197

Post by neither_color »

Ysraes wrote: post #125
Shadonototra wrote: post #4

lenovo again.. when it's not shipping with rootkits (they did it twice!) and bloatware, it's about limiting HW a company to boycott

Is there any laptop manufacturer that doesn't ship complete bloat/mal/spy/ware in their products?

System76 laptops with Pop OS.

Re: Lenovo vendor locking Ryzen CPUs with AMD PSB

#198

Post by mjg59 »

mjg59 wrote: post #168
alerighi wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You said it: it prevents you from booting a custom firmware. If the manufacturer decides to lock down the stock firmware for only booting Windows (something that is not absurd and some manufacturers already attempted in the past, and keep in mind that Microsoft is requiring TPM and secure boot with Windows 11) you are basically screwed. You can't boot Linux with the stock firmware and you can't change the system firm…

A computer that requires the firmware to be replaced to boot Linux is already at the point where 99% of users are just not going to install Linux (I've personally ported Coreboot to two of my laptops, and even I would never buy hardware that required me to do that before I could run Linux). And, well, you may well have never heard of attacks that would be mitigated by these technologies, but I have. Firmware-based at…

Ok, as promised, I wrote up my thoughts at https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/58424.html . I think with a few small tweaks Boot Guard could be turned into something that offered the same security benefits without being as user-hostile. PSB may require more work in this respect, but it should be technically possible to achieve the same outcome.

Re: Lenovo vendor locking Ryzen CPUs with AMD PSB

#200

Post by thrtythreeforty »

spamizbad wrote: post #108
alerighi wrote: post #48

The problem is the AMD PSB functionality in itself. It should be considered malware like the Intel managament engine and thus refused by users. It's a second processor that runs a proprietary firmware signed by the vendor (that the user cannot modify or substitute entirely with a FLOSS alternative) that vendors can use do harm to the user. The AMD PSB can also be used to lock down a processor to enforce secure boot a…

RISC-V permits vendor extensions so absolutely nothing is stopping a vendor from creating PSB-like functionality in a RISC-V chip. RISC-V is just an ISA.

I mean for that matter you can have a RISC-V core with an open source boot ROM that refuses to boot anything but Windows (pretend for a moment they deign to do a RISC-V build).
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