161–170 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.
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.
Can't speak for System76, but I got the AMD Thinkpad (A485), and I'm honestly disappointed as hell and now I understand why you don't see the Ryzens on laptops too much. The power management is an absolute joke (the thing has two batteries and barely lasts 2 hours total), suspend works maybe 20% of the time, and the OS actually freezes on it every now and then leaving no trace in syslog. I'd much rather get an Intel…
Afaik newer generations have Intel beat on performance/watt, particularly in HT heavy applications and at least on desktop.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you familiar with the ThinkPad x210? Have you thought of addressing the market of people wanting a small (12 to 13 inch), robuste, laptops with trackpoint and no arbitrary memory limitation? Lenovo has abandoned that market, and there's enough demand for people to create and sell kits for it. Could System 76 fill that gap?
I have an x210. The main reasons I bought it were the keyboard and the screen (2880x1920, which is a 3:2 aspect ratio). If you want a small laptop with 32GB of RAM, the X390 and L390 seem like decent options.
I was sad when they got rid of the dual battery in the x280.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can't speak for System76, but I got the AMD Thinkpad (A485), and I'm honestly disappointed as hell and now I understand why you don't see the Ryzens on laptops too much. The power management is an absolute joke (the thing has two batteries and barely lasts 2 hours total), suspend works maybe 20% of the time, and the OS actually freezes on it every now and then leaving no trace in syslog. I'd much rather get an Intel…
What Ryzen are you specifically referring to? Afaik newer generations have Intel beat on performance/watt, particularly in HT heavy applications and at least on desktop.
You're bold. :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can't speak for System76, but I got the AMD Thinkpad (A485), and I'm honestly disappointed as hell and now I understand why you don't see the Ryzens on laptops too much. The power management is an absolute joke (the thing has two batteries and barely lasts 2 hours total), suspend works maybe 20% of the time, and the OS actually freezes on it every now and then leaving no trace in syslog. I'd much rather get an Intel…
What Ryzen are you specifically referring to? Afaik newer generations have Intel beat on performance/watt, particularly in HT heavy applications and at least on desktop.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What Ryzen are you specifically referring to? Afaik newer generations have Intel beat on performance/watt, particularly in HT heavy applications and at least on desktop.
Leaving HT enabled in 2019. You're bold. :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's like saying you can't call Linux open source because it bundles closed firmware for WiFi, for example... The ME could certainly still be active, that is true, but with modern x86 platforms attempting to disable the ME or PSP using the documented method is the best that can be done. A very large amount of the work the firmware does is done by open source code in either Coreboot, EDK2, or the System76 firmware a…
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…
Of course, ME has easier time doing that. But any ROM you can't inspect, any binary blob you load can do that.
I suppose that if you want this level of impenetrability, you have to go with everything custom. Could your memory controller scheme against you and alter RAM contents when a backdoor pattern is encountered? Do you trust IBM to not put a backdoor or a kill switch in your POWER9?
Implement your CPU, memory, bus, and disk controllers, NIC logic, etc, in FPGA. Build your own RAM with controllers you program, don't trust DIMM manufacturers. Write your own or adopt open booting software, same with firmware for the peripheral devices.
You'll get a very high security computer where a backdoor has basically nowhere to hide.
Alas, it won't fit the restrictions of a laptop.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are the mobile AMD GPU options all that great? The RX 5500M that's coming out soon looks interesting. The reasons for going with Nvidia are: * Nvidia is more power efficient. This is really critical for mobile devices * Nvidia has CUDA, which is important for (among other things) folks that use machine learning frameworks * System76 has put in work to make using Nvidia GPUs more seamless on Linux (pre-installing the…
Fair points all around. > Are the mobile AMD GPU options all that great? I haven't had issues with them, even with high-performance stuff like gaming and CAD (can't speak much to machine learning, though). > Nvidia has CUDA, which is important for (among other things) folks that use machine learning frameworks What's stopping them from using OpenCL? Whether by using an ML library that actually supports OpenCL outrigh…
Back then, the case was unclear because so little stuff existed outside of the MPI & graphics worlds. Today, for most engineering leaders today, the CUDA ecosystem, and emerging productivity layers like RAPIDS is quite rich. They make OpenCL a niche & risky call. The goal should be writing ~100X more code than the OpenCL ecosystem is giving you, it's just surface level.
Worst company to buy a Linux laptop from. I attempted to purchase a laptop from them in the past and got hit with crazy duties even though the wording on the site made it appear that there were none. Simply better to buy a certified Dell laptop such as: Latitude 7490 or Latitude 7480
Also the display stopped working after a week and they blamed me for cracking the screen, even though I kept the laptop in a bag all the time.
The support was bad too. I would get response from different person on same support request for every new message. It bothered me because it looked like the new person who replied next time had no idea about the history of the support request.
I spent a lot of time deliberating on what to replace my 13” MBP with. The idea of more open hardware is attractive, but both system76 and purism fell short (mainly battery life) I ended up going with a Lenovo x1 carbón extreme and threw ArchLinux on it. The trackpad is worse, and battery life isn’t quite as good (I feel like I can optimize this, but haven’t had the chance yet), but it’s such a capable machine. I fee…