[coreboot] greetings and laptop questions

[Taiidan at gmx.com]

On 10/08/2017 11:06 AM, Jim Hendrick wrote:

> Just subscribed - I will mostly "lurk" but I do have a few questions for
> the group.
>
> I am looking at a new laptop, and one of my options is a Dell Precision
> 7510 (I like the quad-core and loads of RAM available) but I would like to
> not use a vendor BIOS.
>
> Has anyone put coreboot on one of these?
Assuming there is no hardware code signing enforcement anti-feature 
("boot guard") for the firmware enabled you would have to port coreboot 
to it, this would take around 6 months for a skilled firmware engineer.
> Anyone tried and failed?
>
> Any recommendations for something similar (a good laptop ~15 in. quad-core,
> 32GB RAM and fast SSD storage)?
> I will be running multiple virtual machines - hence the RAM and cores...
W530, supports open source hardware init coreboot and me cleaner.
Buy one, install your own SSD, RAM upgrade and W520 keyboard/armrest if 
you don't like the chiclet layout.

Alternatively you could get a G505S (owner controlled) if you don't want 
ME/PSP - but that only supports 16GB RAM.
> (I also am looking at system76 and Purism but I am bit leery of spending a
> lot with a small / new company - comments appreciated)
Purism dishonestly markets their products - while they claim that their 
laptops "respect freedom and privacy" their version of coreboot is 
nothing more than a wrapper layer for intel FSP (binary blob that does 
all the hardware init) which is next to pointless for the amount of 
money you would spend on one as all it does is move trust from vendor to 
OEM not avoiding the hypothetical OEM firmware backdoors.

System76 is a fine choice if all you want is a laptop that runs linux 
without difficulty.