System76 Launches Two Intel Laptops With "Open-Source Firmware" Coreboot

[numacross]

I don't think you're reading that page correctly -- it just lists all current Ryzen desktop processors. While I'll grant that Zen+ APUs in the Ryzen 3000 family with Zen2 CPUs might be a bit confusing, I don't think AMD is misleading anybody. It clearly states on the front of the 3200G and 3400G box "2ND GEN" (which it is, both Zen+ and the 2nd gen of APUs since 1000 series APUs weren't a thing). Also the listings for Ryzen 3000 APUs on sites like Newegg state "2nd Gen" in the product details.

I'm scrolling top to bottom like a normal user would. There's a lot of Zen 2 features on that page and the 3000 APUs are listed there as well. It sure looks like all of the processors there are "3rd gen" with all those wonderful features. The only place containing "2nd gen" is, as you said, on the box photo.

Even Ryzen 3's description is dubious:

AMD Ryzen™ 3 Desktop Processors

Cutting-edge, true quad-core architecture provides the responsiveness and performance you’d expect from a much pricier PC. Including models with advanced Radeon™ graphics built-in.

Using "cutting-edge" that refers to Zen 2 and "including models with graphics" that do not have said cutting-edge architecture...

All in all both AMD and Intel do marketing tricks.

[isantop]

in my point of view this is a all or nothing game means you have all opensource like in a raptor IBM power9 system
or it is like nothing. means open-source coreboot is nothing if you have closed source intel ME (managment engine DRM/Copyprotection)

What about the nonfree firmware running on your GPU or your storage drive?

[skeevy420]

This is why I would prefer an AMD solution. Binary blobs don’t concern me as much as Intel’s marketing. I’m not saying AMD is perfect either but they don’t go out of the way to confuse people with their naming conventions.

by the way there are other reasons to prefer AMD but the fact is Intel makes used car salesman look honest.

Exactly. Oddly enough, a couple of my joke comments recently highlighted that marketing stuff. Paraphrased, Intel was all "we're the best at everything" and AMD was all "Intel was kicking our ass for a few years there".

At least AMD seems honest in their marketing...outside of those product spec pages that don't differentiate the Windows-only features...

That doesn't apply to the Intel Phoronix posters. They've always seemed honest and genuine to me. Just those clowns in marketing and advertising.

[madscientist159]

stormcrow The technical details on System76' website state that ME is disabled on these devices.

System76 is not being truthful then. At minimum the following Intel signed binary ME components are required to bring the x86 cores out of reset:

• RBE
• BUP
• KERNEL
• SYSLIB

I don't know what others think, but calling an ME that loads and runs all that "disabled" seems to be severely distorting reality.

Until we can achieve full open-source hardware, we should acknowledge our failure instead of just calling stuff open-source because it makes us feel better

Fully agreed. Especially when multiple devices across multiple architectures with full firmware source (even if they aren't open source hardware) exist right now. Claiming modern x86 systems or other systems requiring binary-only firmware have "open source firmware" is very misleading, especially when those statements could be construed to be purposefully conflating the locked hardware with the (oftentimes more expensive) hardware that offers actual open source firmware, in an attempt to drive sales of the locked hardware.

[kpedersen]

Not sure I follow your logic. If people were not ranting about open source fw implementations, companies wouldn't be putting these things out in the first place.

Quite a few SoC vendors who are unable to release everything open-source still brand their product as open-source (possibly as a marketing buzzword to attract us kind of guys). My issue is that it muddies up the idea of what open-source really means and people will start to get used to the idea of "partially open" as being the best you can get.

Until we can achieve full open-source hardware, we should acknowledge our failure instead of just calling stuff open-source because it makes us feel better

[Girolamo_Cavazzoni]

stormcrow The technical details on System76' website state that ME is disabled on these devices.

[nranger]

Well then you probably know that Ryzen 3400G is not even using the same core (Zen+) as Ryzen 3600 (Zen 2)? While the differences are not as big as in the 10th gen Core there are still some - memory speed and compatibility, cache sizes, AVX2 implementation to name a few. Both are considered "3rd Gen AMD Ryzen™"

I don't think you're reading that page correctly -- it just lists all current Ryzen desktop processors. While I'll grant that Zen+ APUs in the Ryzen 3000 family with Zen2 CPUs might be a bit confusing, I don't think AMD is misleading anybody. It clearly states on the front of the 3200G and 3400G box "2ND GEN" (which it is, both Zen+ and the 2nd gen of APUs since 1000 series APUs weren't a thing). Also the listings for Ryzen 3000 APUs on sites like Newegg state "2nd Gen" in the product details.

[madscientist159]

Thanks Michael for clarifying the blob situation in the article from the beginning. The title on articles from other sites was quite misleading in my opinion, so the clarification was well placed in your article to educate the reader. That's all I ask for, education / honesty, my personal concerns with this hardware aside.

[jacob]

This is why I would prefer an AMD solution. Binary blobs don’t concern me as much as Intel’s marketing. I’m not saying AMD is perfect either but they don’t go out of the way to confuse people with their naming conventions.

by the way there are other reasons to prefer AMD but the fact is Intel makes used car salesman look honest.

I don't care about marketing lies, the clarification is always just one Google query away. What does worry me is their microcoded backdoors and Intel, AMD and ARM are all equally bad there. The only way to steer clear of those shenanigans is currently POWER but unfortunately that's a non-starter for a laptop.

[ThoreauHD]

Very cool.