Hi Xavi,
Thanks for your interest in coreboot. This is a long email! :)
I have made some small comments below.
On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 3:07 PM, xdrudis xdrudis@tinet.cat wrote:
Hello.
First things first: thank you all for working in coreboot, yet another free software project I wouldn't think possible if you hadn't made it real.
I've been reading the archives and browsing coreboot.org, but I have little clue about firmware so I still have doubts I would like to clear beforing buying/building my next computer
VGA BIOS .
Is it necessary ?. I've seen some reports of using coreboot with a propietary VGA BIOS, either run from the graphics card ROM or reaped from the motherboard propietary BIOS. Is this an intermediate state in development and it is eventually replaced with free code ? or we're not there (yet?). Can one live without any VGA BIOS ? Leaving it out means coreboot boots blindly but then (a deblobed) linux/X initializes the graphics hardware all right and you have display just like with VGA BIOS, only later in the boot process ? Or the GPU can't be used without the propietary VGA BIOS ? Can GRUB display a menu without VGA BIOS ? (SGA BIOS doesn't seem useful here, since I don't want to use a serial link forever) Btw, can GRUB show background images without VGA BIOS ? Do these answers depend on the GPU or northbridge ?
VGA BIOS is not required. You could have a headless system. Or a system with a framebuffer driver like Geode.
Double graphics is a problem ?
As far as I know the only modern desktop class chipsets supported by the manufacturer, are AMD RS780/SB700 , am I wrong ? (thanks, AMD!). I think all come with an ATI IGP , which requires blobs in the linux/X driver (AtomBIOS). I may be misinformed on AtomBIOS, but I think I don't want to use it. I've heard nouveau has just deblobed its driver, so I might add an Nvidia graphics card to it (at least while Open Graphics Project isn't ready for consumers). I'll try to buy one second hand, as lesser evil, since I dislike buying directly from vendors not supporting free software. Does having both the ATI IGP and the Nvidia card give any additional complication ? (besides it's going to be less tested than more usual setups). I wish Intel supported coreboot or radeonhd didn't use AtomBIOS (like it once was).
This is a continued area of development, but yes, many drivers use the vbios too hold proprietary information. Again, not an issue if you are running a headless machine.
Any AMD RS780/SB700 boards roadmap ?
Any hints which AMD RS780/SB700 boards are going to be supported first ? (I'm using the suggestions I see on the mailing list, but I've heard of GSoC potential effort and I don't know if there're priorities already set for it)
There is no specific roadmap. This is usually driven by board availability. I think some boards will be ported during GSoC. If you have a preferred board, send an email to the list. Someone might be working on it.
DDR3 coming soon ?
I've heard optimism on DDR3 but I believe it's not yet supported by coreboot. Do you have any estimation on how long can it take or how much would it cost if someone was to pay for it ? (I don't think I can pay, it's just to quantify the effort). For now I'm planning to avoid DDR3 just in case. I'm not sure it's a huge performance benefit.
I think that DDR3 support will be critical for coreboot this year. I am optimistic that we will get some help from AMD this summer.
How to choose socketed boards ?
How can one know whether a card has socketed or soldered BIOS ROMs besides looking at it or some photos ? Should it be in the specs or manual ? (I don't trust myself with a soldering iron).
This will usually be in the manual. Many boards are SPI flash now and you need an external programmer with a test clip to program them. This is an area we need to improve on the wiki.
TPM
I don't like Treacherous Computing and the like so I would prefer to buy a motherboard without TPM. If I can get coreboot to run then the TPM may become harmless, but I still don't want to encourage vendors to put TPM in. The question is, are there security benefits if you control the firmware, like you would eventually increase security by using your own keys, or are the keys hardwired and unreplaceable so that the best you can hope for is to disable them? I don't really know how many boards without TPM are in the market, anyway.
Thanks for reading so far and sorry for abusing this list thus. I'm going to include a little background now, but your answers can help me even without you reading further.
....
If this is a tall order, then I just want to get as close to it as possible. I would like to buy and/or build a computer soon which is as close as possible to someday reach that goal, maybe after some more effort in software/firmware, or after hardware upgrades.
And of course I'm just a consumer, with no business plans about any of this.
These are great goals. It sounds like you have a lot in common with the folks at the FSF. :)
There are a couple AMD and Intel platforms that might meet your needs. I expect more boards (like the 780/710) to be supported this summer if you are willing to wait. I am also hopeful that we see coreboot on systems available from vendors in the future.
Marc