[coreboot] Lenovo G505S and Coreboot LTS Candidates list

[Vladimir]

What if A8 model is supported as well, just not tested yet? These APUs are
very similar to each other, after all ;)
Maybe a knowledgeable coreboot developers, especially those who have ported
coreboot to G505S, could tell what parts of code are A10-specific - and, if
there is indeed such a code, how to change the parameters of that code to
make them suitable for A8 ?

In case they don't reply: if you have SPI clip as well as BIOS programmer
that supports many chips including MX25L1606E , could try a following
scenario:
1) get A8 G505S locally & try to install coreboot
2) if it works, announce it to a mailing list that there's a support and
keep a laptop to yourself ; but if it doesn't work - even after playing
with parameters - and a laptop is bricked, you could restore a
manufacturer's BIOS using SPI clip & BIOS programmer, and then return a
laptop to seller...

About A10 model - it does not seem to be US-only: there are a lot of offers
in Russia, as well as at "developing countries" such as Thailand/India
(maybe that stock was inherited from EU countries) But, because of huge
quantity of different laptop models/modifications, and dependence of their
local availability on local retailers' preference, there are countries
which got either a small stock of G505S or none at all! :P And that returns
us to "reasonable availability" debate... In my perception:

"Reasonable availability" for a laptop model, is when a person is able to
get a new laptop (not used/refurbished) - for a price that does not exceed
the manufacturer's list price by more than X % of it. (e.g. 25%). That
additional condition regarding the list price is necessary, because if
there would be some greedy retailers left - who didn't sold out their large
stock just because of outrageous unreasonable prices - I wouldn't call this
as "reasonably available" ;)

As you see, "reasonable availability" is a quite subjective term, because
if your country doesn't have a stock of this laptop:
*) your price would be not just price of unit but also a shipping price
from other country, + possible import taxes
*) there are various risks: if, because of your location, you cannot buy a
laptop in store after checking its quality,
a laptop could have manufacturing defects that are not enough to request a
replacement/partial refund, e.g. laws based on ISO 13406-2 standard could
allow a seller to refuse a replacement of laptop if there are a few
annoying dead pixels.
These risks have a different "weight" in the eyes of different people, e.g.
many people wouldn't consider it as "reasonably available" even if it's
available from neighbor country with a low shipping price, because they do
not want to risk. And that makes this term even more subjective and hard to
measure by automatic metrics...

P.S. Indeed, some laptops that are listed in coreboot "LTS Candidates" list
( http://www.coreboot.org/User_talk:MrNuke/LTS_Candidates ) have A10-5750M
as well and seem to be more "reasonably available" than G505S, at least for
your country. But, despite having a somewhat similar hardware, nobody
ported a coreboot to them yet :P

Best regards,
Vladimir Shipovalov


On 7 April 2015 at 16:17, Emilian Bold <emilian.bold at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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