Re: [coreboot] greetings and laptop questions

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.

greetings and laptop questions

[Duncan]

Hi,

I am not aware of a Coreboot port for the W530. Do you have any more
information?

Best,
Duncan

[e-mail]:
> 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.

greetings and laptop questions

On 10/08/2017 08:39 PM, Duncan wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am not aware of a Coreboot port for the W530. Do you have any more
> information?
>
> Best,
> Duncan

There is a W520 port from charoletteplusplus and she was working on a 
W530 port but they never got merged - no idea why, I would consider 
contacting her for more info.

https://www.coreboot.org/Board:lenovo/w520

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
>
> [e-mail]:
> > 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.

greetings and laptop questions

[Youness Alaoui]

On Sun, Oct 8, 2017 at 6:15 PM, [e-mail]  wrote:
> > (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.

I don't get why you constantly try to discredit Purism and insult
everything we do. You complain about coreboot being "useless" because
it uses FSP, but you fail to mention that anything using coreboot will
use the FSP unless it's 10 year old hardware (Sandybridge is the
latest FSP-free supported CPU). The original email asked about a
coreboot port, not a libreboot port. Every time I see purism
mentioned, you have to jump in to insult and dishonestly say that
Purism is dishonest. If you want to claim bullshit like that, at least
find something real and concrete to back it up. I've ignored you many
times, but I'm fed up of your one-man vendetta against Purism. What
happened to you for you to have so much hate against us?

Extremely funny how you then say that System76 is "a fine choice"
considering that System76 doesn't even come with coreboot, and even if
it did come with coreboot, it would of course, still depend on the
FSP. Also, System76 hardware depends on components which do require
binary blobs, as opposed to Purism laptops, so I don't get why
System76 is "a fine choice" if Purism isn't.

To answer Jim, the Purism Librem 15 doesn't support 32 GB of RAM, but
it does run coreboot and will come with a disabled ME (blog post
announcing that is pending). If you need a laptop which runs linux
without the need for any of the binary firmware blobs (firmware-linux
package in debian), where the company is actively working on
eliminating the remaining blobs in the system (the ME, the FSP and
VGABIOS) then you might want to look at Purism, if you don't care
about those issues and/or require 32GB of RAM (which our laptops don't
support), then you should discard Purism from your list of choices and
look for something else.

I hope that helps.
.

greetings and laptop questions

[Nico Huber]

On 09.10.2017 00:15, [e-mail] wrote:
> 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.

I've seen that mentioned a lot and can only say: Please stop spreading
that FUD about coreboot. Even with blobed silicon init, coreboot still
gives you about 80% of the freedom of a free firmware. You only have
to trust in one party that provides the blob and not in n parties that
put their code into the usual Windows booting firmware. coreboot, even
blobed, also gives you much more freedom about the platform configu-
ration and the boot process as a whole.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like FSP either (from a developer point of
view, it makes coreboot porting twice as hard and 10 times more frus-
trating if something doesn't work right away). You can stomp on it as
you wish. But please don't disgrace coreboot.

Nico