[coreboot] Regarding Intel (and Librem)

Vladimir quickcracktime at gmail.com
Sun Apr 26 21:29:31 CEST 2015


Today I discovered that CPU is indeed socket-ed on G505s, so it is possible
to get G505s with less powerful CPU (e.g. A8) , and - if it turns out to be
not compatible, or not fast enough for your needs, then you could get
A10-5750M and install by yourself. Saw it for ~$50-$80 at Aliexpress
(higher price for not used yet)

There are three slightly different motherboards which could be found in
Lenovo G505s, all made by Compal Electronics :
*1) *LA-A092P for only 8650G, which is built-in into APU (no dual graphics)
*2)* LA-A091P rev 1.0 for 8650G + AMD HD 8570M (dual graphics)
*3)* LA-A091P rev 1.A for 8650G + AMD R5 M230 ( dual graphics, slightly
more powerful than "2)" )
And, some other Lenovo laptops have the same Compal motherboards, e.g.
G405s has LA-A091P.
If I am correct: there are more Lenovo AMD laptops supported by Coreboot,
they are just not tested yet...

Also, on my motherboard there was no MXIC chip, but cFeon QH32-104HIP bios
chip instead. As you see, lots of things could be added to Coreboot G505s
wiki. I've asked a coreboot wiki account so that I could improve g505s
page: add new information, and clarify older as well


On 17 April 2015 at 11:45, Vladimir <quickcracktime at gmail.com> wrote:

> Problem with Librem is not just that it isn't fully free yet and doesn't
> seem to become so in future, but also that it is an Intel-based product.
>
> Intel is totally NOT friendly to coreboot project (and open source
> community in general) - that could be seen by their malevolent actions,
> such as introduction of Boot Guard "feature". Intel tries to justify them
> by "it's for your safety" preaching; but, "anytime someone puts a lock on
> something you own, against your wishes, and doesn't give you the key,
> they're not doing it for your benefit" (Doctorow's Law)
>
> By purchasing a product of a company, you are fully supporting their
> policy. And that is why it is not good to support Intel by getting
> Intel-based products and developing for Intel, despite ~75% of x86/x86_64
> CPU market is owned by them.
>
> You are right, there are some difficulties about AMD products, such as the
> need to reverse engineer SMU and Atombios firmwares for their APUs. But at
> least they're not putting deliberate hardware obstacles in their new
> products, and if they don't become "evil" like Intel (hope so) AMD could be
> a future of coreboot x86/x86_64 branch.
>
> P.S. In addition to Lenovo G505s, I was very happy to find out that -
> thanks to latest contributors - coreboot is now supporting the ASROCK
> IMB-A180 and Biostar AM1ML which are based on AMD AM1 platform
> (architecture family 16h, Puma/Jaguar SoCs are compatible) Maybe some of
> these products have a potential to be RYF'ed, will see...
>
> Best regards,
> Vladimir Shipovalov
>
> On 11 April 2015 at 19:33, Peter Stuge <peter at stuge.se> wrote:
>
>> Alexandru Gagniuc wrote:
>> > figured out how to fuse the PCH to disable ME
>>
>> Please read ISBN 9781430265719.
>>
>> The ME firmware controls the host CPU reset.
>>
>> //Peter
>>
>> On 10 April 2015 at 08:45, Alexandru Gagniuc <mr.nuke.me at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On Monday, April 06, 2015 01:45:32 PM Vladimir 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:
>>> >
>>> You are free to add it, but keep in mind that anything with an AMD APU
>>> will
>>> fail the RYF-certifiable criteria due to SMU and atombios.
>>>
>>> If we're going to lower the bar, we should also consider Librem 15. At
>>> least
>>> that one has (should have) a much more durable construction and much
>>> better
>>> screen. If those guys aren't as full of it as they sound, and have
>>> figured out
>>> how to fuse the PCH to disable ME, then RYF'ing a Librem should be less
>>> work
>>> than anything APU.
>>>
>>> > Best regards,
>>> Alex
>>>
>>> On 8 April 2015 at 12:49, Vladimir <quickcracktime at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> 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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