Don't Get Excited Over Coreboot Laptops Yet

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Don't Get Excited Over Coreboot Laptops Yet

Unfortunately there isn't much to get excited over yet when it comes to using Coreboot on laptops...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTA1MzM

[HokTar]

Crap... I was hoping to get a new AMD Trinity with coreboot this year.

So I guess it's not happenning and we'll have to use UEFI that is bigger than the kernel itself. Awesome.

[diriel]

Coreboot Devs

I wonder if "we" opened a dialog with the coreboot dev community and tried to get some funding for a "Headhunting Mission" on one of the nicer looking AMD Trinity systems, if possibly we could get at least one coreboot system up.

Food for thought anyhow,
Gary
P.S. I for one would donate to that cause.

[oliver]

I'm sure if you posted this on the coreboot mailing list, someone would step up

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_Socket_FM1/F1A75V/ (F1A75-V)

would be my personal suggestion. Doesn't have weird extra chips to offer extra options, cheap and does feature the graphic card connectors on the motherboard. Hard to find though (couldn't find it on newegg).

[Drago]

I am dissapointed with this talk. I had very high expectacions, but I heard nothing I already didn't know(on the technical side). I also want caroboot trinity, though.

[Ex-Cyber]

I'm sure if you posted this on the coreboot mailing list, someone would step up

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_Socket_FM1/F1A75V/ (F1A75-V)

would be my personal suggestion. Doesn't have weird extra chips to offer extra options, cheap and does feature the graphic card connectors on the motherboard. Hard to find though (couldn't find it on newegg).

The "F1A75-V PRO" seems to be much more common. I'm biased in that regard since I own one, but considering that I bought it at a local independent store I think it's a fair conclusion that it's widely distributed. I'm not sure any of the extra chips (extra USB3 controller, extra SATA controller, any others?) would actively cause problems. The "Asus TPU" sounds like the sort of OEM secret sauce that might screw things up, but it can apparently be turned off manually via a switch (unless this is just some GPIO pin that the BIOS reads and then tells the chip to turn itself off, which probably isn't out of the question).

[ChrisXY]

Well, I'm looking for one of the more powerful notebooks in the not so far future: HD 6950 or better, 16 gb ram, 2 hard disks, 17 inch, i7 2... etc.
I don't quite understand the resistance against that kind of notebook in a reasonable price span... Looks like a Samsung NP-700G7A or Schenker XMG P701 to me.

And interesting features like coreboot? No chance at all it seems. Instead I'll still be stuck with a crappy BIOS. And by crappy I mean, lacking any reasonable configurability or downright buggy.

[droidhacker]

If you don't give the name of the vendor, then OF COURSE we haven't heard of it. DUH!!!

Now what is GOING to happen is the same thing that ALWAYS happens with coreboot, but with minor variation.
"We're going to do it, we're going to do it", but it won't be done in time for the hardware to ship. The hardware will then ship with proprietary bios with promise of upgrading later on to coreboot. Coreboot for that hardware won't be finished before the hardware is deemed obsolete, so attention will drop for getting it working. The hardware will eventually have a pre-alpha dev version that will be almost totally non-functional and nobody will ever be interested in working on that hardware again.

[Kivada]

Crap... I was hoping to get a new AMD Trinity with coreboot this year.

So I guess it's not happenning and we'll have to use UEFI that is bigger than the kernel itself. Awesome.

Hit up System76 and Zareason, maybe if we all keep badgering them they'll get something able to load Coreboot with an AMD A10 Trinity APU. Why them? Cause they're the only shops I know of that sell only Linux x86 laptops.

[Kivada]

Well, I'm looking for one of the more powerful notebooks in the not so far future: HD 6950 or better, 16 gb ram, 2 hard disks, 17 inch, i7 2... etc.
I don't quite understand the resistance against that kind of notebook in a reasonable price span... Looks like a Samsung NP-700G7A or Schenker XMG P701 to me.

Cause those 17-18" slabs aren't laptops so much as they are desktop computers with their own built in uninterpretable power supply, screen etc. They are heavy, hot, awkward and eat power like an SUV drinks gas.

Most people go the other route of bigass desktop and a netbook or subnotebook for mobile usage. Personally I'd love a 10.1" @ 1280x800 running an AMD E-450 as that would cover 90% of my needs for a mobile device, if I needed something with more punch I'd love something based on the current AMD A8 or the upcoming A10 APU with no bigger then a 15.4", though I'd take that at 1920x1200.

Thoguh it would be nice if in the future if the OSS drivers can get multi GPU and OpenCL sorted out it would be fun to have the equivalent of the A10 w/ the HD6990m(not like the desktop version, it's only 1 core, not 2) in a 15.4", you know, shut down the HD6990m when it's not needed, but be able to use both for compute, use the IGP for light 3D(think QuakeLive or OpenArena) and the HD6990m for heavy 3d and let the IGP handle Havok engine style OpenCL physics since the performance difference between the current HD6620G(A8 IGP) and HD6990m is so much that there would likely be no benefit from Crossfire, possibly even be slower in that setup...