[coreboot] Lenovo G505S and Coreboot LTS Candidates list

[Emilian Bold]

My point is not to limit your LTS list to US laptops. US has
*extraordinary* availability for a lot of gear.

There's also the matter of procurement and warranty. A company won't bother
importing some laptop from outside the EU just because a developer wants it
-- they will look locally and as a last resort within the EU.

Except some brands (Apple comes to mind) warranty becomes a hassle if the
laptop breaks. Transport costs, long wait time and language issues
complicate matters.

Amazon Germany seems to have 2 laptops in stock with A10. Amazon
Spain/France/Italy/Netherlands has none. Only Amazon UK seems to have it
without giving a stock warning (but it's sold by a 3d party).

Anyhow, I don't want to sidetrack this, but the first criteria for the LTS
laptop is "reasonable availability"...

Perhaps you should have some metric for availability (this could even be
automated somewhat). Pick a list of top electronics sites/stores from a
list of countries and define a formula based on model availability.

Alternatively, it would be great to support the A8 too!

To me the the G505S would clearly be a better machine to recommend compared
to an ancient Thinkpad X2xx!

--emi


On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 3:28 PM, Vladimir <quickcracktime at gmail.com> wrote:

> If I am not mistaken, your country is Romania... Unfortunately - if I
> didn't skip something - it looks like Romania went out of A10 stock just a
> couple of weeks ago! However, I found many offers from Hungary, which is
> very close! Some offers are listed on "price list"-type websites (e.g.
> http://www.arukereso.hu/CategorySearch.php?st=g505s+a10 ) while others
> are not listed anywhere (e.g.
> http://www.notebookspecialista.hu/lenovo_ideapad_g505s_59_422983_notebook-11928.html
> )
> Nice thing is that these offers usually have A10 + R5 230M, slightly
> faster dual graphics. But the majority of G505S models selling in Europe
> have Win8 pre-installed, so I'm afraid it would be hard to avoid paying
> extra for this bloatware, in your case :P
>
> As for other European countries, it is difficult for me to look through
> the entire EU because there are many countries with many languages. I only
> know English as foreign language, and thats why the majority of foreign
> offers I'm able to find, are in UK/US...
>
> On 6 April 2015 at 23:12, Emilian Bold <emilian.bold at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Well, the G505S with A10-5750M is explicitly listed as no longer being
>> sold. So it's the A8 or nothing.
>>
>> Could you provide links within the EU with (online) shops still selling
>> the A10 variant and having some actual stock?
>>
>> --emi
>>
>> On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 6:45 PM, Vladimir <quickcracktime at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Yes, in addition to A10-5750M based G505S there are also A8 and A6 ones.
>>> But there are some possible problems regarding them:
>>> 1) their price is just slightly lower than with A10 - as result,
>>> price/performance ratio seems to be worse for these models
>>> 2) I'm not sure if it is possible could upgrade their APU from A6/A8 to
>>> A10-5750M after purchase
>>> 3) most importantly: some parameters inside a coreboot source code for
>>> G505S could be A10-specific ;
>>> I am not sure if a current "A10-inclined build" would run on A8/A6 out
>>> of the box, without additional tweaking
>>>
>>> A question from my last letter - about compatibility of G505S coreboot
>>> build with various graphics solutions found in different modifications, is
>>> not addressed yet... to remind, there are three groups of modifications:
>>> *) only 8650G (no dual graphics)
>>> *) 8650G + AMD HD 8570M (dual graphics)
>>> *) 8650G + AMD R5 M230 (dual graphics, slightly faster)
>>>
>>> P.S. Below is an =incomplete= list of SKUs for A10 G505S models that I
>>> was able to find. If there is a shortage in your country, maybe this list
>>> could assist you in search (those mods with windows 8 are about $50 more
>>> expensive and support evil M$, please dont get them ;-) )
>>>
>>> 1) only 8650G (no dual graphics) + 4GB + FreeDOS = 59-410323
>>> 2) only 8650G (no dual graphics) + 8GB + FreeDOS = 59-405169
>>> 3) only 8650G (no dual graphics) + 4GB + Windows 8 = 59-380131
>>> 4) only 8650G (no dual graphics) + 6GB + Windows 8 = 59-373010 /
>>> 59-406417
>>> 5) only 8650G (no dual graphics) + 8GB + Windows 8 = 59-403088
>>> 6) 8650G + AMD HD 8570M (dual graphics) + 4GB + FreeDOS = 59-405168
>>> 7) 8650G + AMD HD 8570M (dual graphics) + 6GB + FreeDOS = 59-409773
>>> 8) 8650G + AMD HD 8570M (dual graphics) + 8GB + FreeDOS = 59-380146 /
>>> 59-387536
>>> 9) 8650G + AMD HD 8570M (dual graphics) + 4GB + Windows 8 = 59-407135 /
>>> 59410966
>>> 10) 8650G + AMD HD 8570M (dual graphics) + 6GB + Windows 8 = 59-382102
>>> 11) 8650G + AMD HD 8570M (dual graphics) + 8GB + Windows 8 = 59-401209
>>> 12) 8650G + AMD R5 M230 (dual graphics, slightly faster) + 4GB + FreeDOS
>>> = 59-410881
>>> 13) 8650G + AMD R5 M230 (dual graphics, slightly faster) + 8GB + FreeDOS
>>> = 59-410885
>>> 14) 8650G + AMD R5 M230 (dual graphics, slightly faster)  + 4GB +
>>> Windows 8 = 59-408604
>>> 15) 8650G + AMD R5 M230 (dual graphics, slightly faster)  + 8GB +
>>> Windows 8 = 59-410883
>>>
>>> On 6 April 2015 at 14:20, Emilian Bold <emilian.bold at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> 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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