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

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

#261

Post by npx »

I love this concept and I love that it is proliferating. Purism offers what I'd consider to be more attractive hardware, but that's very subjective. As of Kubuntu 19.10, I actually consider Linux to be the best operating system for a laptop.I look forward for 20.04 and a few years of near total disregard for updates.

I want to be an AMD fanboy! I want (at least) 16 cores, 32 threads, a fully open source graphics stack, Wayland, flicker free boot, and open source firmware as described here. As it is, I just had to go with Intel/NVidia because it's more seamless. Even though I'm not really using the NVidia GPU, I do have it available if I want to work with Tensorflow etc. Ultimately, for me it is a question of stability but I hope that these systems can really close the gap.

I want something like this System76 machine with very good support for encrypted ZFS right out of the box. I don't know if that would entail LUKS or ZFS encryption, but I want it to work. I want a USB key that actually serves as a key and allows me to boot or otherwise unlock the system. Again, I'd prefer this to be a fully open source AMD/ATI system based on Kubuntu. With ZFS, bpftrace, and Docker... this is what Solaris wanted to be when it grew up.

I'm not sure how big the market for this would be, but I'd pay good American money if anyone catered to it. Right now I'm using a Dell G3 Intel/Nvidia laptop which, in fairness, is obscenely fast.

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

#262

Post by lonelappde »

npx wrote: post #261

I love this concept and I love that it is proliferating. Purism offers what I'd consider to be more attractive hardware, but that's very subjective. As of Kubuntu 19.10, I actually consider Linux to be the best operating system for a laptop.I look forward for 20.04 and a few years of near total disregard for updates. I want to be an AMD fanboy! I want (at least) 16 cores, 32 threads, a fully open source graphics stac…

If you aren't using a GPU regularly, Why not use a cloud gpu? Cloud CPU is cheap as free if it's just occasional playing around, vs $100 to $1000 and all the manufacturing pollution to be stuck with a GPU you don't use

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

#263

Post by lonelappde »

tpearson-raptor wrote: post #145
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.

I have one. How are you claiming open source firmware when your hardware requires signed, closed source binaries to even begin to boot? I refer specifically to the Intel Management Engine, which incidentally is why we gave up on x86 many years ago. How did you solve the GPU closed, signed firmware problem for discrete GPUs? How about the WiFi card firmware? I understand your decision to try to keep compatibility with…

I think you need to go up one level, to the wholesalers who manufacturer the barebones systems. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clevo

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

#264

Post by npx »

lonelappde wrote: post #262
npx wrote: post #261

I love this concept and I love that it is proliferating. Purism offers what I'd consider to be more attractive hardware, but that's very subjective. As of Kubuntu 19.10, I actually consider Linux to be the best operating system for a laptop.I look forward for 20.04 and a few years of near total disregard for updates. I want to be an AMD fanboy! I want (at least) 16 cores, 32 threads, a fully open source graphics stac…

If you aren't using a GPU regularly, Why not use a cloud gpu? Cloud CPU is cheap as free if it's just occasional playing around, vs $100 to $1000 and all the manufacturing pollution to be stuck with a GPU you don't use

I wanted to use the NVidia GPU in this laptop, it just doesn't work as well as the Intel GPU (I hate screen tearing). I think this will be great as a development environment once I get around to making Docker work with the NVidia drivers (allegedly it should). I'm not sure if you can do the same thing with AMD gear but the ability to create a Tensorflow NN and distribute it as a hardware accelerated Docker image is pretty cool.

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

#265

Post by isantop »

sbeckeriv wrote: post #131
isantop wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that stories like this are the extreme minority of cases. We have a great many customers and the overwhelming majority of computers we sell live out their entire (long) lives without any sort of incident, major or minor. However, when someone buys a computer and everything works as expected, that's not really all that notable because there's nothing interesting about that, and so you don't really he…

Yes every manufactured product will have its percentage of issues. I think it is how you handle the failures and the customers that will be important moving forward. I can not speak to the original quote but my experience as not been amazing. My 4k Oryx Pro has rebooted randomly since the second month I have owned it. I sent it back 3 times already, ran tests per support and even reinstalled PopOs many times. It stil…

I'm deeply sorry we couldn't get that issue resolved.

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

#266

Post by isantop »

mfsch wrote: post #136
isantop wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that stories like this are the extreme minority of cases. We have a great many customers and the overwhelming majority of computers we sell live out their entire (long) lives without any sort of incident, major or minor. However, when someone buys a computer and everything works as expected, that's not really all that notable because there's nothing interesting about that, and so you don't really he…

While I have no experience with System76 and the quality of your devices, I doubt you can make any claims about the number of incidents with confidence. I have owned many devices that have had various quality issues that didn’t rise to the level where I felt it was worth going through some warranty procedure that may or may not alleviate the issue after spending an unknown amount of time & money on it. I don’t like t…

I'm sure you're correct that not every fault gets reported to us; even among those that do, the customer doesn't always decide to take the action and get the computer fixed, depending on the problem and the solution. That said, I'm reasonably confident that most issues with our hardware do result in some communication between the user and us.

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

#267

Post by tpearson-raptor »

pgeorgi wrote: post #251
tpearson-raptor wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's POWER's training code for DDR4: https://git.raptorcs.com/git/talos-hostboot/tree/src/import/... pgeorgi has a valid point in that if you go for the cheapest off the shelf building block type DDR4 solution for your silicon design (won't name names here, but it's a widely known vendor in the silicon block space), those controllers come with mandated binary-only firmware. IBM (and apparently Marvell?) both didn't…

That cheapest COTS block also has the advantage of being battle tested by the big customer base. Since you presumably have pretty good contacts into IBM: ever asked if they'd consider pooling resources with other vendors around their interconnects in an open forum? Not sure if DDR4 (or USB, or even PCIe 4.0) silicon is a huge differentiator for them, and those protocols all thrive on interoperability: no need for IBM…

The general answer is yes and yes. That's why OMI / OpenCAPI are being released as standards, with RTL / HDL. I think at this point there would be more appetite for a next gen interface like DDR5 vs. DDR4 to be released, but I'm just speaking personally from general knowledge here.

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

#268

Post by tpearson-raptor »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #247
tpearson-raptor wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the downvoters: I'm guessing you wanted to run Windows 10 "safely" somehow, or sandbox your games. There's almost no other reason to be this stuck on x86; at the end of the day it's just a consumer architecture that some well known privacy disrespecting software requires to run. It's not even that great of an architecture from a technical perspective, it just happens to have the financial weight of the prosumer ma…

I'm a fan of what Raptor is trying to achieve but you perhaps need to go easy on the company Kool Aid. Hijacking another manufacturer's comment thread to push your own agenda is one thing, ranting and being disrespectful is quite another.

I wouldn't be here if I didn't see a bunch of headlines yesterday that made it sound like these new laptops have proper open firmware.

They don't. That's why I'm here, to provide the missing other half of the story.

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

#269

Post by tpearson-raptor »

pgeorgi wrote: post #252
tpearson-raptor wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I figured as much. We'd love to do a laptop, we're literally just stalled on the GPU. This is where a consortium of ODMs and OEMs could possibly effect change, the combined buying power is probably enough to get custom GPU silicon sans-DRM and locking created. Only question is, does enough willpower exist from the other ostensibly open vendors at this time to actually work toward that goal with us? ;)

Provide a path to a $1300 laptop that is POWER based (and not crippled "slow 1 core SMT1" stuff from IBM's dead-bin) and you might entice System76 and Purism. Your products target "Freedom, no matter the costs" while their products aim for "better than what the market has right now, at consumer friendly price points". Both are important: they demonstrate that there's mass market appeal, you demonstrate that there's a…

> Provide a path to a $1300 laptop that is POWER based (and not crippled "slow 1 core SMT1" stuff from IBM's dead-bin) and you might entice System76 and Purism.

I just gave them a path to a desktop that is POWER based, with very low up front costs (basically take their existing Thelio chassis, swap mainboards from x86 to POWER, do some software builds of Pop!_OS, and do a trial launch). I think that's a far more reasonable initial trial than going for a full laptop. It's also relatively consumer friendly, especially in today's cloud era where the proprietary apps people are using might just well be behind a web browser in the first place.

If they were a laptop-only company I'd agree with your assessment (I'm not happy with the GPU situation at all, that's the primary blocker for a libre laptop), but they're a laptop and desktop company. That means there's more ways they can test market owner controlled systems than a full up laptop design with massive design + tooling costs for an uncertain return.

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

#270

Post by ckdarby »

swebs wrote: post #233
ckdarby wrote: post #156

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

What country did you order to?

Canada. I'm aware there's duties but when I had ordered their website made it seen like they handled these.

I refused to pay the extra like $150 for the laptop and sent it back.

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