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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

#61

Post by jackpot51 »

lovehashbrowns wrote: post #47
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.

System76 has been so great for the Linux laptop community, thank you for your work on that! I got the Galago Pro this past holiday and it has been so perfect for me. :) I hope you guys continue to offer such a great range in hardware configurations. That's what convinced me to go for one of your laptops over the Razer/Dell products since their RAM limit was 16GB when I was shopping around.

Glad to hear that. I certainly like working with laptops, desktops, and servers across a wide spectrum of hardware - from the Galago Pro to the Thelio Massive

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

#62

Post by kjeetgill »

DuskStar wrote: post #53
kjeetgill wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Intel and AMD CPUs do not share a common socket (or chipset) on server, desktop, or mobile platforms. I think the last shared socket was Socket 7 [0], released back in 1995. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_7

I didn't realize that. I guess it shows that I talk to more people building desktops than I have myself.

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

#63

Post by pgeorgi »

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…

> I will get https://www.coreboot.org/users.html updated as soon as possible.

That would be https://review.coreboot.org/c/homepage/+/35957

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

#64

Post by cmurf »

dublinben wrote: post #7
Porthos9K wrote: post #2

Sweet. I hope they're working on POWER9 and RISC-V offerings, too. The x86/amd64 monoculture needs to go.

It's not a laptop, but the Talos II workstation runs on POWER9 and has open firmware. https://www.raptorcs.com/TALOSII/

It uses OpenBMC firmware, now under The Linux Foundation.

EDK2 is also open source, a UEFI implementation. Looks like Coreboot has been around about as long as EFI, and supports most of the same architectures.

So is the Coreboot advantage argument mainly that it's simpler than UEFI?

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

#65

Post by projektir »

api wrote: post #58

I love what System76 is doing, but I have to say that the name Pop OS is just horrible. It just screams "toy" and sounds like a name that would come out of some fly by night junkware vendor. The exclamation mark makes it even worse. It's almost as bad as ending a name with "-ster." 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 becau…

Yeah I agree but I've been using it for 5 months now and it's great and I can't say I care about the name that much anymore.

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

#66

Post by pram »

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…

They don't make the hardware, all their laptops are rebadges of Clevo/Sager

https://www.sagernotebook.com/Notebook-NP8454.html

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

#67

Post by shmerl »

jdright wrote: post #36
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.

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.

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...

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

#68

Post by dochtman »

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?

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

#69

Post by pgeorgi »

snagglegaggle wrote: post #30
jackpot51 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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 the right place and time are enough. Guess what:

> But why would I believe this? It seems you're selling snake oil.

The initial bootstrap is basically always implemented in a boot ROM (whether you see it or not) and it could decide to implement a backdoor unless some conditions are met.

According to your criterion all computing out there more modern than Z80 or 65816 era stuff is insufficient.

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

#70

Post by hlandau »

shmerl wrote: post #67
jdright wrote: post #36

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.

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).
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