On 12/23/2017 04:50 PM, echelon@free.fr wrote:
(was [coreboot] Coreboot Purism BIOS is free? open?) Regarding the "AMD pre-PSP" devices, I have a very naive question : are some of them still in production or none of them? (i.e all one can buy nowadays are only "pre-owned" devices with a life expectancy far less than that of a new one..) What about the opteron line? Are they still in production? Sorry for hijacking the thread and thank you for answers.. Florentin
Yes of course you can still buy a new KGPE-D16 and KCMA-D8 opteron board, performance with their best CPU's is equivilant to AM3+ FX-8310 (or almost two FX-8310 for the 16 core CPU's) Those two boards are owner controlled (no ME/PSP) and have 100% libre firmware (open source silicon init), they also have an open source firmware for the BMC available for secure libre remote management. You can play modern games in a VM on them via IOMMU-GFX, or use qubes (quite nice for that as they have dual USB controllers)
MSRP: KCMA-D8 - $315 KGPE-D16: $415
I wouldn't bother buying a new Opteron CPU however as a CPU has an estimated lifespan of 20+ years, but the board should definitely be brand new. There is also the Lenovo G505S, an owner controlled pre-PSP AMD laptop that can run coreboot with open source silicon init. (unlike the purism laptops which use the intel FSP binary blob) which you can find as a refurb.
Although I suggest also looking in to a TALOS 2 running POWER9, which is significantly faster and much more secure. https://raptorcs.com