[coreboot] Coreboot Purism BIOS is free? open?

Nico Huber nico.h at gmx.de
Tue Dec 19 14:41:49 CET 2017


Hi,

On 18.12.2017 10:07, Dame Más wrote:
> Hello,
> I understand.
> I want implement Coreboot for current 7th and 8th generation Intel
> computers.

coreboot already works on 7th gen Intel (Kaby Lake). Not sure what 8th
gen generally refers to. Kaby Lake Refresh might work as well, and
Cannon Lake is worked on. No sign of Coffee Lake support, afaics.

Though, all these newer Intel chips are only supported with coreboot's
open-source infrastructure around a proprietary core, namely Intel FSP
(firmware support package). You still have much more control over the
boot process this way. But compared to a fully open-source coreboot
it's much harder to support a new motherboard (after my first FSP port,
I'd calculate at least 4 times the effort). And you have to trust
Intel, ofc.

> And if the Pursism BIOS was opensource, I could work with it as a base. However
> I can not find the source code to work with him.

Purism used a most proprietary UEFI/BIOS on their first devices. They
ship now (some?) devices with coreboot. But that's as described above,
build around the proprietary FSP. So there is nothing to learn from
their code (as of yet).

> I like GNU/Linux and the opensource because among all we do it better, but
> if the code is not liberated, I can not speak well of Purism.

They are working on it. Ask Youness if you can help him to reverse
engineer FSP.

I hope this answers your question. Sorry for all the noise here on the
ML. Threads about "liberated" devices often get hijacked (especially if
they are about Purism) to advocate some BS or lament about the ME
(which is actually unrelated to coreboot).

Nico



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