[coreboot] greetings and laptop questions

[Nico Huber]

On 09.10.2017 02:39, Duncan wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am not aware of a Coreboot port for the W530. Do you have any more
> information?

The W5xx and T5xx models usually share the same motherboard. The only
difference I know of is that the W530 comes more likely (maybe always)
with 4 DIMM slots. 4 DIMMs is not much tested with the native code but
you can always use the MRC blob as last resort (should be doable in a
day with some community support (if flashing and debugging are already
set up)).

Nico

> 
> Best,
> Duncan
> 
> Taiidan at gmx.com:
>> On 10/08/2017 11:06 AM, Jim Hendrick wrote:
>>
>>> Just subscribed - I will mostly "lurk" but I do have a few questions for
>>> the group.
>>>
>>> I am looking at a new laptop, and one of my options is a Dell Precision
>>> 7510 (I like the quad-core and loads of RAM available) but I would
>>> like to
>>> not use a vendor BIOS.
>>>
>>> Has anyone put coreboot on one of these?
>> Assuming there is no hardware code signing enforcement anti-feature
>> ("boot guard") for the firmware enabled you would have to port coreboot
>> to it, this would take around 6 months for a skilled firmware engineer.
>>> Anyone tried and failed?
>>>
>>> Any recommendations for something similar (a good laptop ~15 in.
>>> quad-core,
>>> 32GB RAM and fast SSD storage)?
>>> I will be running multiple virtual machines - hence the RAM and cores...
>> W530, supports open source hardware init coreboot and me cleaner.
>> Buy one, install your own SSD, RAM upgrade and W520 keyboard/armrest if
>> you don't like the chiclet layout.
>>
>> Alternatively you could get a G505S (owner controlled) if you don't want
>> ME/PSP - but that only supports 16GB RAM.
>>> (I also am looking at system76 and Purism but I am bit leery of
>>> spending a
>>> lot with a small / new company - comments appreciated)
>> Purism dishonestly markets their products - while they claim that their
>> laptops "respect freedom and privacy" their version of coreboot is
>> nothing more than a wrapper layer for intel FSP (binary blob that does
>> all the hardware init) which is next to pointless for the amount of
>> money you would spend on one as all it does is move trust from vendor to
>> OEM not avoiding the hypothetical OEM firmware backdoors.
>>
>> System76 is a fine choice if all you want is a laptop that runs linux
>> without difficulty.
>>
>