New subject: building a coreboot (and 100% free software) compatible box

7 Feb 2013

      Hi Hubbard,
Thank you for your answer!
At 2013-02-07 08:05, David Hubbard wrote:
...
Hi Csillag,
[...]
I don't have experience with Intel motherboards.
If this sounds like I'm pushing one specific motherboard, I apologize. 
Rudolf Marek did a great job porting coreboot to the Asus F2A85-M board,
Yeah, I am reading the thread. Congrats there.
...
and I bought one. I simply know the most about this board.
The open source radeon driver performs just fine for this board (as 
you mention below, yes, there is a binary blob).
... and as such, it does not fit the requirements (when used with 
on-board graphics.)
...
1.2. It must have hardware support for AES. (For hw crypto
acceleration.)

For AMD that means you want a Bulldozer or Piledriver:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AES_instruction_set#Supporting_CPUs_2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piledriver_%28processor%29#2012_platforms
1.4. It must have hardware support for virtualization.

Which specific virtualization features are you interested in?
Everything that is available. What's AMD's equivalent of VT-d called 
nowadays?
IOMMU or AMD-Vi ?
...
AMD CPUs should all have some virtualization capability. Coreboot + 
virtualization has not been tested on the F2A85-M.
Could you please test it?
...
1.5. It must be able to drive 3 independent display outputs, at
least in 1920x1200 resolution.
    (Preferably all digital, but that's not necessary.)

The F2A85-M board has HDMI, DVI-D, and VGA sockets, but only works 
with up to 2 displays. I can confirm that all three sockets work fine 
with the open source radeon driver, and that dual-display works fine.
That's fine, however, since the integrated GPU requires a binary 
firmware, it does not fit the requirements.
...
ASUS does do 3-display motherboards, just not this one.
Yep. There is a board with the same name & Pro prefix that is like that. 
(F2A85-M Pro.)
However, that would sill require a binary firmware, so it would not fit 
the requirements, therefore, irrelevant.
...
I think this means you'll need a discrete graphics card, as you 
mention in 2.1 below. Bitcoin just got ASICs so if you're the type to 
risk a scammer on fleabay, you could score a great deal.
OK, but what graphics card? Both AMD and Nvidia require binary firmwares...
Is there something that does not? (And does 3 displays...)
...
1.6. I must _use_ this, in a production environment, therefore it
must work. Reliably. Now. I have ~15 yrs Linux programming
experience, have modified stuff inside the kernel and X drivers,
and I am not afraid to have my hands dirty, but now I am not here
to run a hobby project, I want to to buy something that works, so
that I can do my job using it.

Great! I understand that completely. The F2A85-M has some linux bugs:
Thank you for the listing!
...
1.6.1. The motherboard realtek r8169 gigabit NIC will lock up the 
system as it gets fully loaded (tested up to kernel 3.7.1). Consider 
picking up a cheap PCI-E NIC and ignore the on-board NIC until the 
bugs are well and truly fixed.
OK, not a problem.
...
1.6.2. The hwmon sensors driver is still a work-in-progress with 
significant bugs. The stock linux kernel doesn't do anything to hwmon, 
which is fine for production use.
Does not care.
...
1.6.3. I'll mention that there is almost no overclocking ability just 
to be complete. The only thing coreboot supports is selecting the 
proper voltage for DDR3 RAM at compile time.
Does not care.
...
2. Would be nice:

2.1. It should only use integrated graphics. (Both Intel and AMD
can do 3 displays from integrated graphics now.) If I must, I
could add discrete card[s], but that increases power consumption
and system size...

Yep, integrated graphics can drive 1920x1200 but only 2 displays.
(With binary firmware -> out of the question.)
...
2.2. Size small enough to be portable. Not planning to use in on
the move; I mean portable in a (potentially huge) backpack,
between several sites, where I intend to use them.
    - size of Intel NUC or Thin Mini-ITX mainboard are very cool,
    - Mini ITX is great, too,
    - MicroATX is acceptable
    - ATX seems to be too big, unless you can recommend me a
really, really small case (with acceptable cooling)

The F2A85-M is a MicroATX board, for what it's worth.
That's fine.
...
2.3. Modern tech and High CPU performance. Of course :) Whatever
is available...

AMD really doesn't have anything that competes with high-end Intel CPUs.
Indeed, this seems to be the case.
...
2.4. Low TDP, for the possibility of quite/silent cooling.
    - definitely under 100W,
    - probably at most 65W,
    - ideally only 45W.

TDP for a high performance AMD CPU is ~100W.
You mean something like the FX-8300, right?
...
I use an aftermarket heatsink and 120mm fan, and if you're willing to 
get a high-end heatsink this board can be silent, even when the CPU 
and GPU are running at 100%.
I could do that, but that would about kill my chances to build this in a 
portable size. Oh well.
...
[...]
...
Now, if I understand correctly, the both GPU's (intel HD 4000 and
Radeon HD 7660D) runs on binary firmware blobs.
I have read about attempts to replace the Intel firmware with an
open version, but I am not sure where it stands now.

What are my options here?

I didn't realize Intel HD 4000 uses a binary blob. That's interesting, 
I'm going to go research that.
I am not exactly sure how the binary part is used; it might be uploaded, 
or it might go into the BIOS.
This is the part I was talking about:
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/intel-gfx/2012-August/019353.html
Thank you for your help:
Csillag

Re: [coreboot] building a coreboot (and 100% free software) compatible box