Oreboot Continues Advancing For Open-Source, Rust-Based Booting On RISC-V

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Oreboot Continues Advancing For Open-Source, Rust-Based Booting On RISC-V

Oreboot is the effort that has been taking shape over the past year as an open-source focused, Rustlang-based downstream of Coreboot. Oreboot continues advancing in its own right concurrent to the wonderful Coreboot advancements...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Oreboot-Boot-RISC-V-Linux

[bachchain]

Oreboot continues to pride itself on being as open-source as possible though acknowledging at least for now on x86 CPUs they need the likes of ME/FSP firmware.

That's directly contradicted by the project readme

oreboot will only target truly open systems requiring no binary blobs. For now, that means no x86.

[SteamPunker]

My favorite language combined with my favorite architecture. And all 100% open source! What's not to like?

[starshipeleven]

That's directly contradicted by the project readme

The "for now" has a meaning though. At the moment this project supports only a Risc-V board but they still laid down some rules for future inclusion of x86. If you scroll down there is "Ground Rules for x86" https://github.com/oreboot/oreboot#ground-rules-for-x86

That said, I suspect they fully know this is highly unlikely to happen so it's de-facto "no x86"

[cybertraveler]

"oreboot"... "Coreboot", but without "C"... clever.

[DrYak]

"oreboot"... "Coreboot", but without "C"... clever.

And also, "ore", in keeping with the tradition of using (oxide-) metal-related names for naming rust-related stuff.

[xinorom]

> Oreboot is also still focused on using Rust code rather than C code in the name of better security and reliability.

Oh god, not this cancer again. Languages don't provide security or reliability, programmers do.

Using Rust for a project like this will bite them in the ass eventually.

[JonathanM]

Oh god, not this cancer again. Languages don't provide security or reliability, programmers do.

Nonsense, languages can provide some security and reliability guarantees. For example it is perfectly possible to define a language in which the compiler rejects all code that isn't proven to terminate or leaks secret data (though preventing all timing attacks might not be possible). You would spend a lot of time convincing the compiler that the code is correct, but it would be possible. (Just not practical for normal software.)

Rust doesn't provide these specific guarantees, but it prevents some types of bugs and makes some easier to avoid. It won't magically make your programs bug free, but it certainly can help in accomplishing this (compared to less safe languages like C). Whether using Rust over an other language is worth it is a different story.

[xinorom]

Nonsense, languages can provide some security and reliability guarantees. For example it is perfectly possible to define a language in which the compiler rejects all code that isn't proven to terminate or leaks secret data (though preventing all timing attacks might not be possible). You would spend a lot of time convincing the compiler that the code is correct, but it would be possible. (Just not practical for normal software.)

Rust doesn't provide these specific guarantees, but it prevents some types of bugs and makes some easier to avoid. It won't magically make your programs bug free, but it certainly can help in accomplishing this (compared to less safe languages like C). Whether using Rust over an other language is worth it is a different story.

Yawwwwwwwn.