Hi All.
Just joined the list to find out your opinion on whether or not I should put coreboot on my laptop.
First off, what do I gain? I read it's faster but I don't really think my BIOS is slow. OR is it? Perhaps seeing is believing...
Second, I've created a small txt file for reference. Felt this mail might get kinda bulky otherwise. So whatever isn't answered below hopefully is in the file.
Step 1: A very brief description of your system: board vendor, board name, CPU, northbridge, southbridge, and optionally other important details. Dell Latitude D820, Intel T2500(2.0GHz) CEntrino Duo, Intel 82801,Intel Mobile 945PM, Nvidia Go 7400 256MB, Intel Pro 3945 minipci, Broadcom gigabit nic PCIe
Step 2: Linux "lspci -tvnn" output for your system, generated by booting Linux via the original BIOS and runnning lspci. See attached
Step 3: Super I/O chip on the mainboard (report the model numbers on the actual chip, for example "Winbond W83627HF" and/or run "superiotool -dV"). See attached
Step 4: Type of BIOS device (see the question "How do I identify the BIOS chip on my mainboard?" below). Please send us the output of "flashrom -V" see attached Step 5: URL to the mainboard specifications page (optional). http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/latit/en/spec_latit_d820_en.pd...
Step 6: Any other relevant information you can provide I'm running Deb Wheezy with GRUB2
* Philippe LeCavalier support@plecavalier.com [110419 20:22]:
Hi All.
Just joined the list to find out your opinion on whether or not I should put coreboot on my laptop.
First off, what do I gain? I read it's faster but I don't really think my BIOS is slow. OR is it? Perhaps seeing is believing...
If your BIOS works for you, you should consider keeping it.
Porting coreboot to a new mainboard is a significant effort and you will have to make sure you have ways to recover from failure (i.e. get your external flash writer and/or soldering iron ready)
However, in some cases you can get to sub second firmware boot times with coreboot. And it is open source, so you can add or remove whatever feature you require or not.
The Wiki is generally a great source of information.
Step 1: A very brief description of your system: board vendor, board name, CPU, northbridge, southbridge, and optionally other important details. Dell Latitude D820, Intel T2500(2.0GHz) CEntrino Duo, Intel 82801,Intel Mobile 945PM, Nvidia Go 7400 256MB, Intel Pro 3945 minipci, Broadcom gigabit nic PCIe
The chipset is generally supported.
Step 3: Super I/O chip on the mainboard (report the model numbers on the actual chip, for example "Winbond W83627HF" and/or run "superiotool -dV"). See attached
So is the Super I/O
Regards, Stefan
Excerpts from Stefan Reinauer's message of Tue Apr 19 21:30:35 -0400 2011:
- Philippe LeCavalier support@plecavalier.com [110419 20:22]:
[..]
If your BIOS works for you, you should consider keeping it.
Porting coreboot to a new mainboard is a significant effort and you will have to make sure you have ways to recover from failure (i.e. get your external flash writer and/or soldering iron ready)
hm. I see. I was hoping the worst case would be flashing it back to the original BIOS. A soldering gun is a bit extreme considering my current setup works just fine.
However, in some cases you can get to sub second firmware boot times with coreboot. And it is open source, so you can add or remove whatever feature you require or not.
Despite the aforementioned this is still somewhat appealing to me.
[..]
To ensure I fully comprehend the risk here...Backing up the BIOS isn't my insurance policy; I'd actually have to replace the chip? Once I've got a clear understanding of the worst-case scenario I'll feel stronger about making a decision.
Am Mittwoch, den 20.04.2011, 09:07 -0400 schrieb Philippe LeCavalier:
[…]
To ensure I fully comprehend the risk here...Backing up the BIOS isn't my insurance policy; I'd actually have to replace the chip?
Yes. When you flash coreboot to your only chip and it does not work you have no means to flash the backup to the chip using your system. Having no backup chip you would need to take it out (probably soldered when using laptops) and use a different compatible system or an external programmer to flash the backup to it.
[…]
Thanks,
Paul
Hello,
Quoting Philippe LeCavalier support@plecavalier.com:
To ensure I fully comprehend the risk here...Backing up the BIOS isn't my insurance policy; I'd actually have to replace the chip? Once I've got a clear understanding of the worst-case scenario I'll feel stronger about making a decision.
Actually, the worst case doesn't imply the replacing of the firmware chip: when you fail a firmware update (or if your new firmware which you tries to load is bugged), your computer will simply not boot, but the firmware component "per se", is not actually "toasted" ("cramé" in french..). So, when bad things arrive, usually there is still some hope because you only have to re-put the original BIOS image into the firmware chip. The bad news are that .. yes .. this operation does imply the desoldering of the firmware chip (in many modern platforms this is a flash memory with SPI interface in soic packaging with 8 pins) and the reflashing of the original content whit an external programmer.. and of course the resoldering of the chip on the motherboard. The tricky part is that the pc motherboards are very fragile pcb circuits with very fine tracks and they are soldered with Pb-free solder which is very nasty to desolder (you have to heat the pad a lot..). But this is doable... and it works!.. ;-) And for the external programmer I let someone else to answer.. Hope this helps, Florentin
* Philippe LeCavalier support@plecavalier.com [110420 15:07]:
Excerpts from Stefan Reinauer's message of Tue Apr 19 21:30:35 -0400 2011:
- Philippe LeCavalier support@plecavalier.com [110419 20:22]:
[..]
If your BIOS works for you, you should consider keeping it.
Porting coreboot to a new mainboard is a significant effort and you will have to make sure you have ways to recover from failure (i.e. get your external flash writer and/or soldering iron ready)
hm. I see. I was hoping the worst case would be flashing it back to the original BIOS. A soldering gun is a bit extreme considering my current setup works just fine.
Yes, the worst case is flashing back the original BIOS. However, you might have to do that without the system booting - at all.
To ensure I fully comprehend the risk here...Backing up the BIOS isn't my insurance policy; I'd actually have to replace the chip? Once I've got a clear understanding of the worst-case scenario I'll feel stronger about making a decision.
You have to be able to reprogram the chip. If your chip is PLCC32 and socketed, no soldering is required. If you have a SPI chip and a dediprog or bus pirate, you should get away without soldering. However, there is a reasonably big chance that, on your first try, you will not produce a coreboot image that is able to load an OS on a previously unsupported system.
Stefan
On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 9:07 AM, Philippe LeCavalier support@plecavalier.com wrote:
Excerpts from Stefan Reinauer's message of Tue Apr 19 21:30:35 -0400 2011:
- Philippe LeCavalier support@plecavalier.com [110419 20:22]:
[..]
If your BIOS works for you, you should consider keeping it.
Porting coreboot to a new mainboard is a significant effort and you will have to make sure you have ways to recover from failure (i.e. get your external flash writer and/or soldering iron ready)
hm. I see. I was hoping the worst case would be flashing it back to the original BIOS. A soldering gun is a bit extreme considering my current setup works just fine.
However, in some cases you can get to sub second firmware boot times with coreboot. And it is open source, so you can add or remove whatever feature you require or not.
Despite the aforementioned this is still somewhat appealing to me.
[..]
To ensure I fully comprehend the risk here...Backing up the BIOS isn't my insurance policy; I'd actually have to replace the chip? Once I've got a clear understanding of the worst-case scenario I'll feel stronger about making a decision.
Where this is a laptop, the flash chip will definitely be soldiered onto the motherboard. Also, you will definitely have an embedded controller (EC), and that will keep flashrom from working out of the box, so you'll need either an external flash programmer (most likely an SPI flash chip) or to do quite a bit of digging and legwork to figure out how to poke the embedded controller to allow access to the flash chip (and then remove the flash chip and put in a socket, or else hack together something to switch between two flash chips). Also, don't expect to find datasheets on the embedded controller, they're typically covered by some fairly restrictive NDAs.
The EC also will come into play during hardware init, so you'll also need to figure out how to initialize it. You may need to initialize it before you can even initialize the ram.
See also http://www.coreboot.org/Laptop
-Corey
Excerpts from Corey Osgood's message of Wed Apr 20 19:55:22 -0400 2011:
On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 9:07 AM, Philippe LeCavalier support@plecavalier.com wrote:
Excerpts from Stefan Reinauer's message of Tue Apr 19 21:30:35 -0400 2011:
- Philippe LeCavalier support@plecavalier.com [110419 20:22]:
[..]
If your BIOS works for you, you should consider keeping it.
Porting coreboot to a new mainboard is a significant effort and you will have to make sure you have ways to recover from failure (i.e. get your external flash writer and/or soldering iron ready)
hm. I see. I was hoping the worst case would be flashing it back to the original BIOS. A soldering gun is a bit extreme considering my current setup works just fine.
However, in some cases you can get to sub second firmware boot times with coreboot. And it is open source, so you can add or remove whatever feature you require or not.
Despite the aforementioned this is still somewhat appealing to me.
[..]
To ensure I fully comprehend the risk here...Backing up the BIOS isn't my insurance policy; I'd actually have to replace the chip? Once I've got a clear understanding of the worst-case scenario I'll feel stronger about making a decision.
Where this is a laptop, the flash chip will definitely be soldiered onto the motherboard. Also, you will definitely have an embedded controller (EC), and that will keep flashrom from working out of the box, so you'll need either an external flash programmer (most likely an SPI flash chip) or to do quite a bit of digging and legwork to figure out how to poke the embedded controller to allow access to the flash chip (and then remove the flash chip and put in a socket, or else hack together something to switch between two flash chips). Also, don't expect to find datasheets on the embedded controller, they're typically covered by some fairly restrictive NDAs.
The EC also will come into play during hardware init, so you'll also need to figure out how to initialize it. You may need to initialize it before you can even initialize the ram.
See also http://www.coreboot.org/Laptop
hm. This is likely a common occurrence, but this sounds to complex for me mostly because the system in question is a system I rely on for work. Maybe I'll grab an older system I don't rely on a see if I can find a well supported chipset to play with. I've got a few older desktop systems that might fit the bill a bit more. Thanks for all the insight from everyone that responded. Once I get a few minutes to myself I'll put together a system and try my luck with coreboot.
-
Corey Osgood -
Florentin Demetrescu -
Paul Menzel -
Philippe LeCavalier -
Stefan Reinauer