questions about google/samus

[Anthony Martin]

Hi,

I have a few questions about the samus device and I figure this
is the best place to ask.

- Does it use the usual depthcharge payload with an internal
  write-protect switch for flashing the firmware? There's no
  boot guard shenanigans going on, correct?

- It looks like the gigabit ethernet device is disabled in the
  device tree but are there pins or pads on the board to get
  to it?

- Can someone describe the keyboard in comparison to, say, an
  older Macbook Pro, a Thinkpad X230 or X240, and the Toshiba
  Chromebook 2? What is the key travel distance like?

- Is the display panel IPS or TN?

- Is the SSD soldered to the board?

- Could this be the coreboot laptop we've all been waiting for? :)

Thanks,
  Anthony

[Paul Menzel]

Dear Anthony,

Am Donnerstag, den 12.03.2015, 15:27 -0700 schrieb Anthony Martin:
> I have a few questions about the samus device and I figure this
> is the best place to ask.

a link to that device would be nice for those not knowing the
development names by heart.

if BOARD_GOOGLE_SAMUS

config BOARD_SPECIFIC_OPTIONS # dummy
                def_bool y
                select SOC_INTEL_BROADWELL
                select BOARD_ROMSIZE_KB_8192
                select EC_GOOGLE_CHROMEEC
                select EC_SOFTWARE_SYNC
                select VIRTUAL_DEV_SWITCH
        […]

[…]
> Could this be the coreboot laptop we've all been waiting for? :)

As this is an Intel device [1] and I am waiting for an AMD based laptop,
I’d say no. ;-)

Thanks,

Paul

[1] http://www.coreboot.org/Binary_situation

[ron minnich]

On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 3:48 PM Paul Menzel <
[e-mail]> wrote:
> As this is an Intel device [1] and I am waiting for an AMD based laptop,
> I’d say no. ;-)

I'm not sure AMD improves the situation much any more, and in some ways a
non-chromeos laptop has lots of other problems. On your AMD laptop, the EC
will be a binary blob. If you're not worried about that, you should be.

ron

[Stefan Reinauer]

Hi Anthony,

* Anthony Martin  [150312 23:27]:
> Does it use the usual depthcharge payload with an internal
> write-protect switch for flashing the firmware? There's no
> boot guard shenanigans going on, correct?

That is correct. Like all Chrome OS devices, Samus (Pixel2) uses
the SPI flash's hardware write protect mechanism for a portion of the
firmware (AKA RO firmware, root of trust).

There are currently no plans to use boot guard in Chrome OS devices, as
it does not provide the same level of protection as the existing
security mechanism, but has a larger impact on using Chrome OS machines
as "hackable devices".
> It looks like the gigabit ethernet device is disabled in the
> device tree but are there pins or pads on the board to get
> to it?

There are no pads for GBit ethernet. As with most mobile devices, board
space is too rare to leave unused things on there (even if you were
willing to destroy the case to break it out)
> Can someone describe the keyboard in comparison to, say, an
> older Macbook Pro, a Thinkpad X230 or X240, and the Toshiba
> Chromebook 2? What is the key travel distance like?

I'm not a keyboard expert, but I prefer the keyboard over my old MacBook
Air.
> Is the display panel IPS or TN?

12.85-inch high resolution IPS (2560 x 1700, at 239 PPI) 400 nit, 3:2
aspect ratio
> Is the SSD soldered to the board?

Yes.
> Could this be the coreboot laptop we've all been waiting for? :)

I am biased on that topic, but it is the nicest coreboot laptop I have
worked on, so far. Two USB Type C ports, open source EC and USB PD MCU
firmware, and 12h battery life are my personal favorites.

Stefan

[Andrzej Szeszo]

On 13 March 2015 at 00:59, Stefan Reinauer  wrote:
> > Is the SSD soldered to the board?
>
> Yes.

It would be nice to look at motherboard pictures. Does anyone know if
there are any online?

I am particularly interested if the mPCIe slot is present like in the
older model. I think it would allow adding some extra internal USB
storage which would make it a really nice general purpose coreboot
laptop :)

Cheers,

Andrzej