Is Coreboot architecture dipendent ?

Hello everybody,

It's the time for me to install Coreboot on one of my machine. It seems a very big design !

Please, can you tell me if Coreboot is motherboard architecture dependent or simply I can download it, compile and flash the .rom file in the Bios chip ?

I will do the first test on a PC with motherboard: MSI MS-7168 ver. 1C mounting an AMD Athlon 64 Processor.

Is it necessary I compile Coreboot on the PC where I want to install it ?

Is Coreboot RAM dependent ? That is, can I start-up the PC with only the Processor and the BIOS chip, without RAM and hard-disk ?

Thanks in advance.

I hope to hear you soon.

Best Regards.

Vincenzo.

Forensic Consultant

Tribunale di Lecce

Studio: Strada di Garibaldi - Contrada Paradisi

73010 Lequile (LE)

cell: 339.7968555

skype: vincenzo.di_salvo

[Philipp Stanner]

Dear Vincenco,

coreboot is extremely architecture dependent. It's hardcore low-level
code, maybe lower than the Operating System (or Windows) itself.

You can configure the makefile for your platform using menuconfig or
kconfig. De facto Lenovo's thinkpads are the only customer-IT-devices
which are supported very well.

Regards,

Philipp

Am 23.07.2017 um 18:01 schrieb [e-mail]:
> Hello everybody,
>
> It's the time for me to install Coreboot on one of my machine. It
> seems a very big design !
>
> Please, can you tell me if Coreboot is motherboard architecture
> dependent or simply I can download it, compile and flash the .rom file
> in the Bios chip ?
>
> I will do the first test on a PC with motherboard: MSI MS-7168 ver. 1C
> mounting an AMD Athlon 64 Processor.
>
> Is it necessary I compile Coreboot on the PC where I want to install it ?
>
> Is Coreboot RAM dependent ? That is, can I start-up the PC with only
> the Processor and the BIOS chip, without RAM and hard-disk ?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> I hope to hear you soon.
>
> Best Regards.
>
> Vincenzo.
>
> Forensic Consultant
> Tribunale di Lecce
>
> Studio: Strada di Garibaldi - Contrada Paradisi
> 73010 Lequile (LE)
>
> cell: 339.7968555
> skype: vincenzo.di_salvo

[ron minnich]

On Sun, Jul 23, 2017 at 9:02 AM [e-mail] <
[e-mail]> wrote:
> Please, can you tell me if Coreboot is motherboard architecture dependent
> or simply I can download it, compile and flash the .rom file in the Bios
> chip ?

no. no no no no no.

How many spare BIOS chips do you have? You need at least 2.

Coreboot is board dependent. And in some cases, you can take two boards
with the same exact part number, made two different days, and one will work
and one will not.

Welcome to the PC world.

If you have a new board, with a new chipset, and it's intel, assume it will
take a good solid 6 months to a year if you have done this before.

coreboot is not a kernel. You don't just load it like you do an OS.
> I will do the first test on a PC with motherboard: MSI MS-7168 ver. 1C
> mounting an AMD Athlon 64 Processor.

I don't see this mainboard in the source tree. This means you have a long
way to go before it can work. If you have not done this before you should
start with an already supported board.
> Is it necessary I compile Coreboot on the PC where I want to install it ?

no
> Is Coreboot RAM dependent ? That is, can I start-up the PC with only the
> Processor and the BIOS chip, without RAM and hard-disk ?

what do you expect to do without RAM?

You need to experiment with coreboot in qemu before you start working on
hardware.

ron