[coreboot] Lenovo G505S blob status?

[Nico Huber]

On 27.05.2017 03:29, Taiidan at gmx.com wrote:
> Is it possible to init the graphics device without the radeon bios blob?
> such as with openradeonbios or with linux (you could do a petietboot
> solution to get graphics pre-OS)

Yes, it's possible and has been done before (e.g. radeonhd and IIRC
some work was already started for the G505). Though you probably have
to write it yourself. AFAIK, all the "open" alternatives you mentioned
above are mere interpreters for the proprietary AtomBIOS code.

> 
> It has no PSP (or obvs ME) and its performance is about equal to a sandy
> bridge, so it seems like a great choice if you don't need the dock
> connector on a pro series thinkpad like the t430.

Performance equal to Sandy Bridge? maybe if you throw all CPU and GFX
cores in one pot. For a single CPU core I'd expect half of the perfor-
mance at equal power consumption.

> 
> AFAIK that version agesa is open source, at least I looked at it and
> didn't see anything weird but I am not an expert on this.

Experts on this seem to be very rare. And the code looks like crap to
me. I see no reason to trust it. OTOH, you don't need an NDA to get
documentation to understand it. That was a huge plus for AMD in the
past (I hope they will publish documentation for newer platforms too,
let's see). Sadly, it didn't make anyone write readable code.

Nico