Why You Don't See Coreboot Supported By Many Modern Intel Systems

[chithanh]

As people mention the Chaos Communication Congress: Richard Stallmann was there and he gave a talk. He mentioned that running free software and buying only hardware which is supported by free software is often the less convenient choice.

And unless people show that they won't buy shiny hardware X due to the vendor forcing them to use proprietary blobs, the situation will not improve. PC manufacturers such as Lenovo (in collaboration with Intel) will continue to lock out Coreboot from their ThinkPads because customers will buy them anyway.

And for SageJeff defending Intel: I consider your argument very poor. Intel gave hardware vendors a way to lock down the computer, but they did not ensure that users could override this even though they were in a position to do so. So Intel is just as guilty here.

[blackiwid]

As people mention the Chaos Communication Congress: Richard Stallmann was there and he gave a talk. He mentioned that running free software and buying only hardware which is supported by free software is often the less convenient choice.

you are joking right, the free software laptops released a few weeks ago were lenovo thinkpads x200, they gave them a different name and replaced the wifi, in a 1-2 years my x220 is most likely the next fsf recommend device.
And I find it funny to hear the word shiny and lenovo in one paragraph.

And if we stay one second on x86, what real alternatives are there. Is now the radeon gpu firmwares ok? If not you can get intel with intel gpu or intel with nvidia gpu. So you are fucked in any way.

But not everybody can live like rms, we all make at least small compromises, the question is how much. if lets say 90% of all people would reduce their meat consume to 10% or get vegetariens would make a bigger different then 10% hardcore people that go vegan. And live vegan is easier than buy a 100% fsf prooven device.

And coreboot is not enough for that btw, it has to boot with libreboot to be really free. And not to mention that I dont have the hardware to flash coreboot onto my device, even if I take the risk of something does not work anymore after flashing it.

[Luke]

Buying refurbished also spares the environment

Buying refurbished does not really matter at all, but do not conflate community efforts to make Thinkpads work with Linux as "support". Support, depending on who is talking, either means it works, or the company actually supports it. And Lenovo does not support Linux. Their stuff sometimes works with Linux, and there is this hive mind mentality that paints Lenovo as this great company worth putting free labor into to make their computers run better on Linux than any other vendors because one or two engineers in their workforce give a damn.

But if you are buying refurbished computers, nobody except the laptop seller is getting money for it, and you aren't impacting any businesses bottom line or interests towards or against Linux. I'm talking about when someone in the community says "I want a Linux computer!" and everyone starts pointing them at Windows notebooks sold by Lenovo, which does serious harm to the potential for real Linux support from vendors.

When you buy something that would have gone to a landfill or an incinerator if nobody wanted it, you are reducing the e-waste problem while also reducing pollution from factories and the terrible damage to the Earth associated with mining of certain materials. People think you can "save energy" by buying a new Prius or some other new car, but forget about the tons and tons of coal buirned to make the steel, and if a hybrid the mining damage associated with making not just one, but several very large battery packs if the car is kept long enough to pay back all that mining and coal use in oil savings. An old Geo Metro or similar high fuel economy car saves the same gas without all that coal and mining. Same judgement applies to computers: buy new only when you have to for an operational reason, such as a demanding application for which existing devices lack the power. Re-task what it replaces or hand it off to friends, never let it go to waste.

If you need a new machine, giving your last one to a buddy instead of pitching it may prevent a lower performance machine from also being purchased new, making the net mining/factory impact of the purchase far less, maybe zero if you are lucky and what you are replacing is not so old (Pentium 4 etc) as to not be good enough for your recipient. Hell, I've heard reports of gamers who fund their new gear habits by selling off last year's parts on E-bay, thus reducing the finanical and environmental impacts of their hobby at the same time.

[zanny]

The last computers I've thrown away were either hardware broken or a 2002 Pentium 4 desktop and 2003 Compaq laptop. IE, stuff so old it no longer does its job. Of course you don't just throw away anything less than 5 - 6 years old.

[Luke]

A P4 laptop is nowhere near useless

The last computers I've thrown away were either hardware broken or a 2002 Pentium 4 desktop and 2003 Compaq laptop. IE, stuff so old it no longer does its job. Of course you don't just throw away anything less than 5 - 6 years old.

That old P4 or 1.4GHZ P3 laptop is probably a match for an Intel Atom (gen 1 or 2, no Poulsbo) netbook. I benchmarked a 2 GHZ Pentium 4 against a Pine Trail netbook, found them neck and neck for things like video playback. Just short of enough for 720P in mplayer/mpv on a compositing desktop, both able to play 720p in IceWm with Pulseaudio disabled. That P4 was a desktop, but a laptop equivalent to that level of power that you already have is comparable to getting an overweight but fully functional netbook for free.

[Guest]

Waht Acer laptop would be 3 years used worth $400 dollar a gaming machine or what? I mean I have some wishes, has to be small somewhat good akku time and dont goes kaputt if you close it to hard or stuff... we have a word for that build quality.

Acer Aspire V3 551G. Comes with a A10-4600M (which can be upgraded), 6GB RAM (also can be upgraded), and also has a dedicated 7670M GPU.

[blackiwid]

The last computers I've thrown away were either hardware broken or a 2002 Pentium 4 desktop and 2003 Compaq laptop. IE, stuff so old it no longer does its job. Of course you don't just throw away anything less than 5 - 6 years old.

I sell them, a 3rd option to throwing away and using it 5-10 years.

[chithanh]

you are joking right, the free software laptops released a few weeks ago were lenovo thinkpads x200, they gave them a different name and replaced the wifi, in a 1-2 years my x220 is most likely the next fsf recommend device.
And I find it funny to hear the word shiny and lenovo in one paragraph.

So you have to give up the convenience to choose computers with the latest and greatest specs. And Lenovo hardware is shiny, just not on the outside.

And if we stay one second on x86, what real alternatives are there. Is now the radeon gpu firmwares ok? If not you can get intel with intel gpu or intel with nvidia gpu. So you are fucked in any way.

Radeon GPU firmware is binary-only and distributed under a restrictive license that forbids reverse engineering. So it is most definitely not ok in this context.
Fortunately some people from Freedreno reverse engineered the Adreno microcode and found that it is quite similar to R600 microcode (Adreno was bought by Qualcomm from AMD some years ago). So if some day a free replacement for one of them happens, the other might follow more easily.

Intel as I wrote earlier requires you to load signed firmware blobs into their chipset. So even if you could reverse engineer those and write a free replacement, there would be no way to run your firmware.

NVidia cards since Maxwell require signed firmware too. Older cards are ok thanks to fuc progs reverse engineering, and even RMS acknowledges this.

But not everybody can live like rms, we all make at least small compromises, the question is how much. if lets say 90% of all people would reduce their meat consume to 10% or get vegetariens would make a bigger different then 10% hardcore people that go vegan. And live vegan is easier than buy a 100% fsf prooven device.

People who think that eating meat is unethical (because of the inhumane treatment of animals etc.) won't even eat a little of it. RMS thinks that proprietary software is unethical.

People who just think that eating less meat is better (because of the environment etc.) don't see a problem if some places force you to consume meat if you don't want to go hungry.

And coreboot is not enough for that btw, it has to boot with libreboot to be really free. And not to mention that I dont have the hardware to flash coreboot onto my device, even if I take the risk of something does not work anymore after flashing it.

Yes, that is precisely what RMS means. The ethical choice is often the less convenient one. It costs more money, requires extra work, and/or doesn't run as well.

[blackiwid]

So you have to give up the convenience to choose computers with the latest and greatest specs. And Lenovo hardware is shiny, just not on the outside.

Radeon GPU firmware is binary-only and distributed under a restrictive license that forbids reverse engineering. So it is most definitely not ok in this context.
Fortunately some people from Freedreno reverse engineered the Adreno microcode and found that it is quite similar to R600 microcode (Adreno was bought by Qualcomm from AMD some years ago). So if some day a free replacement for one of them happens, the other might follow more easily.

Intel as I wrote earlier requires you to load signed firmware blobs into their chipset. So even if you could reverse engineer those and write a free replacement, there would be no way to run your firmware.

NVidia cards since Maxwell require signed firmware too. Older cards are ok thanks to fuc progs reverse engineering, and even RMS acknowledges this.

People who think that eating meat is unethical (because of the inhumane treatment of animals etc.) won't even eat a little of it. RMS thinks that proprietary software is unethical.

People who just think that eating less meat is better (because of the environment etc.) don't see a problem if some places force you to consume meat if you don't want to go hungry.

Yes, that is precisely what RMS means. The ethical choice is often the less convenient one. It costs more money, requires extra work, and/or doesn't run as well.

To the firmware part, do you talk there about the gpus, so you are more extreme than RMS is am I right with that? because RMS and fsf sees gpu firmware as hardware IF you cant load a differnt one on runtime. So the intel-singing whatever is no problem, its hardware for rms/fsf.

For RMS or the FSF the Nvidia Cards are hardware to buy and to reward them for their much investments in free software *hust* and the evil amd hardware to not buy. Sorry I cant swallow that without getting sick of it.

And yes if my only live reason like rms is to promote and have and use a fsf aproved hardware, yes I can do that, but my live has still other aspects. Btw feels funny to fight this way in 99.9% of all other conversations I get attacked for fighting for freedom and free software and defending rms...

it even is to extremist in my feeling, I agree to personaly attack people that DEVELOP unfree software, but attack users that make at least small compromises but go mostly in the right direction is to far. its moraly bad to develop such shit, but as user you are not moraly to somebody else then yourself responsible.

[SystemCrasher]

is very poorly supported. Because Lenovo wants to lock down its boot firmware for security purposes in no way implies that Intel wants to lock out coreboot.

Whatever! If you're user and about to buy something, "Intel Inside" label now nearly 100% warrants it would have "locked boot loader". So it generally means those who cares about freedom and trust should better avoid buying anything Intel based at all. Because most of times it would turn out OEM in mood to overtake total control over device and obviously not going to share keys. Intel made tool which will be (ab)used and no means to override, even with physical presence proof. While hardcore attacker can easily break into system if there is physical access (there're shitloads of tricks to do it and some are really hard to prevent), legitimate users would be locked out of "their" devices. If device which obeys to OEM can be called "yours" at all (it's rather OEM's device, OEM remains real owner).

So I do not see why its wrong to blame Intel. They created harmful tool in harmful way. And it is being abused - without even properly informing users they're not force-raped to accept lenovo "security". Hell yeah, its nice to have unreplaceable firmware from company caught on supplying HTTPS-breaking spyware preinstalled. I bet they will be really secure in their pwnage of losers who bought it .