AMD Picasso Support For Coreboot Appears Finally Ready

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AMD Picasso Support For Coreboot Appears Finally Ready

Back in April I wrote about Coreboot seeing AMD Picasso APU enablement work as the first Zen/Ryzen processor target being handled by this open-source BIOS alternative. It now looks like that Picasso support is all squared away and ready for use by future AMD-powered Google Chromebooks...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=AMD-Picasso-Coreboot-Ready

[M@GOid]

I was considering a Chromebook as a lightweight machine to drag around instead of my stationary 2.2 kg Thinkpad T430 brick, but those F-key row less keyboard was a big no-no. I think that is better to just dust off and refurbish my old Asus EEE PC and stick a lightweight distro on it, just for the simple IT work stuff on location.

In the near future, this Japanese only (for now) Vaio SX12 laptop is what I will lust for:




Look at all those connectors. At 800g / 2lb is the wet dream of IT workers that need a lightweight machine.

[Vistaus]

I was considering a Chromebook as a lightweight machine to drag around instead of my stationary 2.2 kg Thinkpad T430 brick, but those F-key row less keyboard was a big no-no. I think that is better to just dust off and refurbish my old Asus EEE PC and stick a lightweight distro on it, just for the simple IT work stuff on location.

In the near future, this Japanese only (for now) Vaio SX12 laptop is what I will lust for:




Look at all those connectors. At 800g / 2lb is the wet dream of IT workers that need a lightweight machine.

You can map those non-F keys to F keys though. In fact, on most Chromebooks, they are mapped as F keys if you don't install the keyboard patch (or a distro with the path by default). So you're only missing the F labels on the keys, but that's not a big deal, unless you want to specifically show the F keys to your pals.

[M@GOid]

You can map those non-F keys to F keys though. In fact, on most Chromebooks, they are mapped as F keys if you don't install the keyboard patch (or a distro with the path by default). So you're only missing the F labels on the keys, but that's not a big deal, unless you want to specifically show the F keys to your pals.

Indeed, there is the remapping way. I got to look at one available where I live, and there is more missing:



There is only 10 keys on top (should be 12) and there is the missing "Super" (Winkey) key, that I use a lot.

Even if I forget the keyboard, there is the other typical Chromebook limitations, like minimal RAM, storage, etc. I understand some can live with it, but I already have a cheap lightweight laptop that just need some love to be in working condition, so I will stick with that for now.

[R41N3R]

If the availability would be better, I would get one. Hope Google adds Ryzen support in the future too ;-) Would love to get rid of the crappy UEFI!

[Adarion]

They even have some kind of blob firmware for the PSP as it seems. Well, something to get things running at all, at least.

https://review.coreboot.org/c/coreboot/+/33764/1

"soc/amd/picasso: Update all PSP and amdfw.rom building Add Kconfig options and Makefile comand line options to generate the amdfw.rom image. A new intermediate image is introduced, which is the initial BIOS image the PSP places into DRAM prior to releasing the x86 reset. The amd_biospsp.img is a compressed version of the romstage.elf program pieces. Additional details of the PSP items are NDA only. See PID #55758."

And there _is_ info at all about the PSP part, under NDA, though.

@thread
Just today I asked for notebooks w. AMD and IPS panel and no windows in a larger compter shop and they barely had anything. Moreover a lot of models (also W/intel ones) had those horrible keyboard layouts (tiny cursors, PgUp/Dn Home/End only as Fn-Cursor) and the F-keys gone for stupid multimedia crap-keys. Impossible to work with such a "device"!

[torsionbar28]

There is only 10 keys on top (should be 12) and there is the missing "Super" (Winkey) key, that I use a lot.

Even if I forget the keyboard, there is the other typical Chromebook limitations, like minimal RAM, storage, etc. I understand some can live with it, but I already have a cheap lightweight laptop that just need some love to be in working condition, so I will stick with that for now.

For the price, Chromebook makes a fantastic low end Linux machine. I run Coreboot and Fedora on a Dell Chromebook 13 (model 7310) and it's really fast and snappy for standard desktop computing type stuff. The 4 GB of RAM is a little low, but use a light weight DE (I like MATE) and its plenty for doing email, web, documents, etc. The i3 CPU is surprisingly fast. And the 12+ hours of battery life is awesome. 100% Linux hardware support. I think I paid $179 on e bay for mine, and then replaced the 16 GB internal SSD with a 256 GB model. There is no better bang for your buck in this price range. The eee pc and other netbooks of yesteryear are painful to use in comparison.

[M@GOid]

For the price, Chromebook makes a fantastic low end Linux machine. I run Coreboot and Fedora on a Dell Chromebook 13 (model 7310) and it's really fast and snappy for standard desktop computing type stuff. The 4 GB of RAM is a little low, but use a light weight DE (I like MATE) and its plenty for doing email, web, documents, etc. The i3 CPU is surprisingly fast. And the 12+ hours of battery life is awesome. 100% Linux hardware support. I think I paid $179 on e bay for mine, and then replaced the 16 GB internal SSD with a 256 GB model. There is no better bang for your buck in this price range. The eee pc and other netbooks of yesteryear are painful to use in comparison.

You found one model with replaceable storage, interesting. Most of what I saw had soldered RAM and storage on the motherboard.

Netbooks with old Atoms are indeed superslow, but it is most for light work, like checking network connections and some file operations. I have a better machine for heavier stuff, if I need to.

If I find a Chromebook like yours in really good price (here), I may grab one.