New Details On System76's Open-Source Hardware Plans Come To Light

Longtime Ubuntu/Linux PC vendor System76 has been teasing their efforts around an "open-source computer" and other open-source hardware efforts now that they are in the home stretch of setting up their own US-based manufacturing facility. Some new details on their initial aspirations are now out there.

The "open-source computer" speculations have fueled speculation quite wide ranging from some thinking system76 is working on RISC-V or ARM designs to others thinking they may be doing a Coreboot effort for Intel x86 CPUs... Harris Kenny of system76 shed some light on their open-source hardware journey a few days back on Twitter. System76 founder Carl Richell also chimed in with some additional details.

They confirmed they are not designing their own motherboard but working on "pulling proprietary functionality off the mainboard and onto a custom, open source (hardware and firmware) daughter board."

Interestingly, this daughter board communicates with the host system through a USB 3.0 connection... Carl commented that they have SATA working at "full performance" with the USB connection and an Atmel embedded controller is used on the daughter board. (Update: Carl has clarified to Phoronix that the SATA ports are straight-through with drive data not going over USB but the USB communication being used for thermal/chassis control functionality.)

That's about all we know for now. It will be interesting to see its full capabilities and when it materializes; it's not an approach we've seen to date for pursuing an open-source system compared to the likes of Raptor's Talos and Blackbird products that are fully open-source hardware down to the motherboard firmware.