System76 Continues Advancing Coreboot Support, Adding UI For Firmware Updates

[rstrube]

I purchased a System76 Laptop (Darter Pro 2019) and I really love it. I was previously using an Dell XPS 9575 and my primary machine, and I got tired of Dells firmware updates causing problems. The last firmware update broke the trackpad in GDM.

Overall you are paying a bit more, but you're also supporting a company that puts Linux first, and tests very thoroughly on all their hardware. For me, having switched to Linux full time in 2016, it was worth the little bit of extra money to better consistency with Linux as my primary OS.

In addition, they provide excellent built in tools for updating the system's firmware (not Coreboot yet, but easy to do nonetheless), and overall I really like Pop_OS. It's Ubuntu, with a more sane default install, first-class flatpak support, a really nice consistent UI, and some nice quality of life features if you use a system with a Nvidia GPU.

[rekrek]

I do follow System76 offerings, and yes, AMD variant of laptops please.
They are a bit pricey, buy hey, they give proof of their investment in opensource ! I hope they bring motherboard and display swap to laptops for future upgrades.

Would really want to have all binary blobs removed like how raptor is going. Perhaps reach AMD and Intel and try to have a deal for totally opensource firmwares ? Else, just move to RISC-V cpu and add a APU as a co-processor (and run demanding applications as a container on the APU, would enable base station acceleration by moving the container to a more powerful CPU+GPU in desktop mode).

Coreboot should have been something available for more than 20 years ! I wish that there would be laws forcing companies that don't update their firmware to opensource them after 5-10 years (for security reasons).

[Teggs]

I was surprised to come across a review for a Thelio here recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTN1c1j6V1s

And even more surprised that the conclusions were largely positive from that reviewer. The spec and build quality of that machine was... as appealing as the price was high. :P

I don't buy prebuilts, but I wish System 76 all the best regardless.

[ThoreauHD]

I think it makes sense for them to do their own firmware. Dell, Lenovo, or whoever don't have their ass on the line making sure their computers work on Linux. Trusting some limey gnome developer at redhat to keep your firmware updated is an extra link in the chain that can break. I see no reason why they shouldn't do it in house. The tools are open. If they have the people and bandwidth to handle the work, then who GAF. Let'em do it.

[RahulSundaram]

I thought I read somewhere that fwupd + systemd created permission issues that that could 100% hard brick your device. Not surprising to see no fwupd if true.

That's such a vague statement. What does that even mean? What permission issues?

[Kivarnis]

Fantastic, these kinds of business strategies really keeps System76 devices on my radar as highly desirable devices.

I hope to someday see a decent AMD CPU / AMD GPU offering since AMD have been killing it making AMD+Linux a smooth experience out of box and update wise.

Agree'd whole heateredly, looking at them for our next gaming laptop purchase.

[jackpot51]

kinda dumb no fwupd

The new firmware UI is a frontend to firmware update services. Adding fwupd support to this UI for Pop!_OS is on our roadmap.

[ElectricPrism]

The firmware update tool is not proprietary. All code we produce in-house is available under an open source license. Usually this is GPL, though we also produce some MIT code as well as projects using variations on BSD licenses.

The new version is being written in Rust + GTK, and will be available to users on any distribution as a standalone tool (as well as integrating with system settings in Pop_OS).

- https://github.com/system76/firmware-update
- https://github.com/system76/ecflash
- https://github.com/system76/intel-spi

Fantastic, these kinds of business strategies really keeps System76 devices on my radar as highly desirable devices.

I hope to someday see a decent AMD CPU / AMD GPU offering since AMD have been killing it making AMD+Linux a smooth experience out of box and update wise.

[isantop]

I'm sure people of other distributions appreciate having to download an external proprietary tool rather than it being integrated into the system updater and a tool supported by nearly every Linux distro and the Linux Foundation .

The firmware update tool is not proprietary. All code we produce in-house is available under an open source license. Usually this is GPL, though we also produce some MIT code as well as projects using variations on BSD licenses.

The new version is being written in Rust + GTK, and will be available to users on any distribution as a standalone tool (as well as integrating with system settings in Pop_OS).

- https://github.com/system76/firmware-update
- https://github.com/system76/ecflash
- https://github.com/system76/intel-spi

[ElectricPrism]

I thought I read somewhere that fwupd + systemd created permission issues that that could 100% hard brick your device. Not surprising to see no fwupd if true.