[coreboot] Lenovo G505S and Coreboot LTS Candidates list

[Emilian Bold]

I can confirm I'm still able to buy a G505S in my country but it seems to
have the quad core A8-4500M (not the A10) with a dedicated Radeon HD 8570M.

It's a decent machine and it would be great to have it on the official LTS
list.

Speaking of the list, I cannot find any store selling the Toshiba Satellite
C50D-A mentioned in the wiki.

--emi


On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 1:45 PM, Vladimir <quickcracktime at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear coreboot developers,
>
> Francis Rowe (main Libreboot developer) has hinted an idea about adding
> Lenovo G505S to Coreboot LTS Candidates list of laptops, which is hosted at
> MrNuke's User talk coreboot wiki page. I believe it is an excellent idea,
> because:
>
> *1)* Lenovo G505S contains AMD APU, so there is no need to deal with
> Intel ME/AMT so-called "features"
> *2)* this APU has Richland architecture: as result (unlike the more
> recent AMD offerings) it doesn't have "AMD Secure" feature -- based on ARM
> Trustzone technology which already has some exploits against it; there are
> security concerns about ARM Trustzone that are similar to concerns about
> Intel vPro "feature" (remote management etc.)
> *3)* this APU is A10-5750M, the most powerful mobile APU among Richland
> designs - as result, this laptop is still very competitive regarding its
> performance, and also price/performance
> *4)* Unlike the older HP M6-1035DX amd laptop, Lenovo G505S seems to be a
> very popular model: even now, more than 1.5 years after its' introduction,
> there are >200 Internet shops in my large city still selling it new in box
> - not used/refurbished
> *5)* Lenovo G505s works without microcode updates, and already has a
> working Coreboot build (although Video BIOS and SMU firmware have blobs
> that are still not reverse-engineered; and some minor issues - e.g. ACPI
> not perfect yet )
>
> These great points are making me wonder, why this interesting laptop still
> haven't been added to that LTS Candidates list? Does it fail to meet some
> requirement for LTS candidates in a not-obvious way
> (RYF-certifiable,Sturdy,Long shelf-life,Cool factor) or there is some
> not-listed AMD laptop that could be a better candidate?
>
> By the way, I have discovered that there are many modifications of Lenovo
> G505S, which could be divided into three primary groups by their major
> difference - GPU *(minor differences, such as different size of RAM or
> hard drive, are not interesting)*
> GPU modification groups:
> *1)* only 8650G, which is built-in into APU (no dual graphics)
> *2)* 8650G + AMD HD 8570M (dual graphics)
> *3)* 8650G + AMD R5 M230 ( dual graphics, slightly more powerful than
> "2)" )
> Are these modifications all supported by Coreboot? And would be there any
> additional difficulties regarding modifications with dual graphics?
>
> Your answers and opinions will be very welcome
> Best regards,
> Vladimir Shipovalov
>
> --
> coreboot mailing list: coreboot at coreboot.org
> http://www.coreboot.org/mailman/listinfo/coreboot
>
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