AMD To Support Coreboot On All Future CPUs

[droidhacker]

Oh really?

Yeah really... because they don't have the manpower to hack at the bolts while also reverse engineering as-of-yet unsupported chipsets.

They also lack the RESOURCES to buy up at least one of every mainboard ever manufactured. So tell me, how exactly do you expect them to test everything?

I suggest to you that even UNSUPPORTED mainboards may actually WORK, at least in some cases.

[droidhacker]

What "big motherboard vendor" has adopted coreboot? Nobody I know of to date. If you're referring to AMD, AMD doesn't make consumer nor server motherboards.

Big motherboard vendors PAY LOTS OF MONEY for their proprietary junk bioses. If a free open source alternative exists, who wouldn't jump for it?

Coreboot (and LinuxBios) has been around since '99. In 12 years they haven't had anything remotely close to a usable release. Coreboot (LinuxBios) v1 hung around for a while, then they started the v2 line which went nowhere, then v3 came out and now that's deprecated as a "development branch" in lieu of v4.

So? Linux has been around since 1992, and in those NINETEEN YEARS, they went through version 1.everything, 2.0, 2.2, 2.4, and are finally levelling out on 2.6, and yet it hadn't made a serious dent in the overall operating system usage until about 2 years ago somewhere high up in 2.6 -- what happened with all those older versions that never went anywhere, huh? Now, practically every embedded system you can buy runs Linux. You think that MS has a big market share? There is Linux running on 10 times as many devices as MS now... and that all happened in the last couple of years!

Your microwave may run Linux. Chances are that your home broadband router runs linux. You have a DVR? Linux. Anything else plugged into your TV? Probably Linux. Your TV itself? Probably runs Linux.

It takes time for things to get into the "ready state". Just because it wasn't an instant success doesn't mean that it won't take over eventually.

You remember when EEEPC first came out? Right. One of the very first mass produced consumer computers to run Linux. And that was VERY recent.

[droidhacker]

I wonder what the per-unit savings (if any) would be for a motherboard manufacturer to switch from Phoenix or ... whoever else is left in the bios business.
I'm wondering whether the decision to stay with traditional BIOS is financial, or if they are just risk averse, since they have something that works for the majority of their customers.
Like a lot of things, the benefits would be cumulative, as motherboard advances are mostly incremental, other than the occasional major CPU/bus changes.

Before you can switch, there needs to be something to SWITCH TO.

[locovaca]

Yeah really... because they don't have the manpower to hack at the bolts while also reverse engineering as-of-yet unsupported chipsets.

They also lack the RESOURCES to buy up at least one of every mainboard ever manufactured. So tell me, how exactly do you expect them to test everything?

I suggest to you that even UNSUPPORTED mainboards may actually WORK, at least in some cases.

So how many untested and unsupported boards are you offering to flash?

I have several boards with soldered rom chips. Am I volunteering one in hopes that it doesn't render the board useless? No. Has this project rendered boards useless in the past? Yes.

Coreboot does not list anywhere to send donations, either of hardware or of a financial nature. So a lack of resources is certainly of their own doing in that regard.

Big motherboard vendors PAY LOTS OF MONEY for their proprietary junk bioses. If a free open source alternative exists, who wouldn't jump for it?

Because FOSS is not Free to Big Motherboard Vendors. They will require paid support and people to fix stuff if crap breaks. Coreboot will need to adopt a Redhat or MySQL support model for anyone to take them serious enough to offer only Coreboot on their boards.

A diatribe about how Linux is taking over the world

When I installed Redhat in the 90's it didn't fry my rom chips nor render my computer unusable. When it failed to work with my hardware I simply reinstalled Windows.

[curaga]

RedHat in the 90's might have fried your monitor

[PreferLinux]

...if only "all future CPUs" also meant "all future motherboards".

Unfortunately, they can only support their CPUs and GPUs, since they have no control over what others decide to put on their motherboards. I don't blame AMD, it's not their fault, but it sure is frustrating.

Really? They supply them with chipsets, and allow them to make the boards, so they can easily say "Support this, or forget about making boards for our products" if they want to. Intel required EFI support for Sandy Bridge, so I think AMD could do the same.

[JanC]

When you have notes like this:

"This board is very pick about what ROM chips it can use and it will fry any chip that doesn't work."

then your project is no where near release for anything close to enthusiast, let alone mainstream.

No, it only means the motherboard vendors need the tweak it for their board (and release that code). A stock Award/Phoenix/AMI BIOS needs the same type of adjustments to the specific hardware as CoreBoot does. (Actually, it should also be possible to use those BIOS'es as a payload for CoreBoot.)

And imagine AMD releasing a CoreBoot SDK together with the reference boards for their chipsets, that would make it even easier (and maybe cheaper?) for the OEMs.

[JanC]

i've read the wiki and the coreboot page and fail to see any benefits as a "typical" user

• Faster boot.
• Use your favourite bootloader as a payload, so the Windows installer can't overwriting it anymore.
• Load emulation for IBM PC BIOS, OpenFirmware, EFI, etc. when needed.
• Protection against (some) rootkits built into the "BIOS" payload.
• System check utilities (e.g. memtest86) integrated into the "BIOS". (I can also imagine some special tools to pop up for overclockers & such to test/optimise their system.)
• Rescue system in the "BIOS".
• Integrate simple games into the "BIOS". (Imagine CoreBoot Solitaire booting in 1 second, that would be a killer app! )
• Etc.

Basically: your imagination is the limit!

[chithanh]

Forcing coreboot on OEMs is not AMD's style. The coreboot support for a reference platform already contains most of the work needed to port coreboot to a particular motherboard. From there, the coreboot community can quickly add support for new motherboards if they have motivation and access to the hardware. It happened e.g. with the ASRock E350M1.

[PreferLinux]

Forcing coreboot on OEMs is not AMD's style. The coreboot support for a reference platform already contains most of the work needed to port coreboot to a particular motherboard. From there, the coreboot community can quickly add support for new motherboards if they have motivation and access to the hardware. It happened e.g. with the ASRock E350M1.

I guess not, but AMD will have done the majority of the work, so the OEMs won't have to even do as much as with an existing BIOS. And the BIOS would be less work than an UEFI. And I doubt they'll want to go very long with the old BIOS when Intel has UEFI.