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Intel Open-Sources Sound Firmware, Pushing For More Open Firmware

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  • #11
    Originally posted by numacross View Post
    The source doesn't matter without the ability to compile and actually deploy it
    Could QEMU benefit from it with VMs? I'm not sure if this is like the current audio support ich9, but newer?

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    • #12
      Originally posted by polarathene View Post

      Could QEMU benefit from it with VMs? I'm not sure if this is like the current audio support ich9, but newer?
      My post was about the Management Engine firmware and not the audio one

      But to answer you question: I doubt it will have anything to do with QEMU since this is just the driver, firmware and SDK for Intel audio hardware.

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      • #13
        Originally posted by GI_Jack View Post
        Yes and No. It would be hella useful if it could be audited and we could verify a reproducible build. Double plus good if they take the extra step and put up a bug tracker for people to submit bug reports. Instead of being an unknown it would help with both threat modeling, and patching bugs, a real big win for security.
        I agree, but it's not going to happen for current and even near-future hardware even if there was political will from Intel (and there isn't).

        Originally posted by GI_Jack View Post
        As for physically removing and re-programming chips. I do that with my bios and me-cleaner. the bios chip is socketed, labeled in big bold letters, and a basic USB flasher that works with flashrom can be had on amazon for under $10. I also have a plugin cable where I can use a clamp to program/dump roms in place. That was another $5 on amazon.
        This works on a small scale, but a building full of computers would take too much time doing it by hand, hence the officially sanctioned deployment method is needed



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        • #14
          It sounds like mostly getting free eyeballs at the problem. Since they use a BSD-like license, it's a small step. But opening up the DSP firmware, I'll tip my hat to Intel. A lot of what we do is brute-forcing our way in the darkness, so I'll take any inch I can take. Thank you Intel.

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          • #15
            Originally posted by numacross View Post
            This works on a small scale, but a building full of computers would take too much time doing it by hand, hence the officially sanctioned deployment method is needed
            Flashrom can usually operate the onboard SPI socket too, so you can reflash the firmware from the same PC, and automate it with a script or something.

            It's just not recommended to do so because if the modification screws up the PC you are marooned.

            But most deployments have multiples of the same model of PC, so if the manual procedure works fine on one or two guinea pig PCs you can mass-deploy on any other PC that is exactly the same, because mass-production means they are the same.

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            • #16
              Now if only they would open-source MKL.

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              • #17
                I wondered why SOFproject links to alsa-project.org, it turns out the Firmware wiki page there has details of the architecture with useful diagrams. And sound-open-firmware-tools.git is part of Alsa-project.git!

                Intel should have put the documentation and software inside the pulseaudio project, just to mess with people.

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                • #18
                  is Open-Sources Sound Firmware suppose to replace alsa?

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