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Why is the latest AMD hardware unsupported in libreboot?
- mikexstudios 11y agoTo be fair, see: https://libreboot.org/faq/#intel https://libreboot.org/faq/#intel
- cwyers 11y agoAnd they don't list any Nvidia hardware at all here, as far as I can tell: https://libreboot.org/docs/hcl/index.html https://libreboot.org/docs/hcl/index.html So I guess their solution is to hoard 2013-vintage hardware for the rest of all time?
- jeremy7600 11y agoOnly one desktop motherboard is supported. Can you even find them anymore? Only 5 listed globally on eBay.
- jlarocco 11y agoActually, if you click through, that desktop motherboard isn't even supported in the 20150518 release :-/
- jandrese 11y agoI was wondering this myself. I was wondering why they were focusing so much on AMD when all AMD did was copy Intel's horrible idea. It seems kind of pointless to continue the Libreboot project if they're not going to work on any modern hardware for the foreseeable future. Their recommended systems are all old and out of production. Fastest recommended laptop seems to be roughly a Core2Duo at 2.0Ghz.
- yuhong 11y agoThey don't even do microcode updates, which is ridiculous when you are running non-free microcode to boot.
- zokier 11y agoWell that's the good old GNU/FSF firmware reasoning; its "better" to have the same firmware permanently burned into a chip than have it software upgradeable. Also happens to be one of the reasons I think FSF has lost its way if they ever even had it in the first place.
- yuhong 11y agoFun quote from http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-hardware-designs.en.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-hardware-designs.en.html for example: "Any program in your computer, that someone else is allowed to change but you're not, is an instrument of unjust power over you"
- tadfisher 11y agoIs it Libreboot who is being ridiculous, or Intel/AMD? Is it worth trusting OEMs with wholesale access to your data and your networks?
- tadfisher 11y agoThey don't work on mainstream PC platforms, but for embedded use Coreboot/Libreboot has a much better story. For example, Atom and Geode systems support it basically by default, and many boards ship with it preinstalled.
- mtgx 11y agoOr we could keep pressuring AMD and Intel to open up that proprietary code.
- snvzz 11y agoit's time for: http://www.lowrisc.org/ http://www.lowrisc.org/ For desktops, it simply needs to get into the fast enough territory.
- chocolatebunny 11y agoI am both amazed and terrified. I'm amazed that we're in an age where the processor I'm using to do all the things I do has it's own processor that's running it's own OS, has a Webserver and running a Java stack. I'm also terrified about what this processor could do at any moment. Is there away to inspect the IME bytecode to see if they put any backdoors in there? How is this code updated?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- aexaey 11y agoWhole page is an enlightening read, with quite a few disappointing discoveries, such as: There are several privacy, security and freedom issues with [Purism Librem laptops], due to the Intel chipset
- masida 11y agoThey're probably talking about the wireless network adapter here, not the CPU. If that's what you're implying.
- aexaey 11y agoAlas, CPU. Namely ME[1] and FSP/SMM blob [2]. If you are wondering what's wrong with either of them, I would recommend Joanna Rutkowska's research as a starting point [3,4]. [1] https://libreboot.org/faq/#intelme https://libreboot.org/faq/#intelme [2] https://libreboot.org/faq/#fsp https://libreboot.org/faq/#fsp [3] http://blog.invisiblethings.org/papers/2015/x86_harmful.pdf http://blog.invisiblethings.org/papers/2015/x86_harmful.pdf [4] https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7352-towards_reasonably_trustworthy_x86_laptops https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7352-towards_reasonably_trustwor...
- web007 11y agotl;dr: It's not just AMD, it's anything AMD after 2013 and anything Intel after 2009. So essentially all modern x86 hardware.
- orik 11y agoI wonder if you get better performance per watt on 2012 AMD chips or 2008 Intel chips
- fnordfnordfnord 11y agoAnd ARM
- aexaey 11y agoOn ARM side, RK3288* looks promising: https://libreboot.org/docs/hcl/c201.html https://libreboot.org/docs/hcl/c201.html * Yes, that is the very same RK3288 that has an embarrassing calendar bug discussed here a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10768140 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10768140
- johnkeeping 11y agoThe bug was in the RK808 PMIC, which may or may not be used on an RK3288 based system. It looks like the RK3288-based ChromeOS devices do use it though.
- bluejekyll 11y agoGiven that AMD and Intel are both driven by large for profit customers and their requirements, these concerns will probably only get worse. ARM is probably the closest open chip platform out there, but even that is not Free in the FSF sense or $ sense. It seems that the project is going to forgo user-base for principles, and then most likely no longer be relevant. It's great to try and fight for and defend your principles, but if that means that you no longer have a user base on which to stand, then the fight will be of little value. I'd love to be wrong about this, but I can't logically see another way that this will play out.
- profeta 11y agoremember that ARM is not a manufacturer. Samsung and the likes churn out the current ARM chips. And i trust Samsung with security even less than AMD or Intel.
- KingMob 11y agoIt could die off if we discover the NSA stole Intel/AMD's keys to backdoor every computer in existence.
- ris 11y ago"ARM is probably the closest open chip platform out there" I don't know what you think is open about ARM. AMD even uses the ARM locking-down technology to implement its system management processor.
- bluejekyll 11y agoI meant that it's a spec, my point wasn't perfect, but there really aren't OpenSource chips.
- jlarocco 11y agoI guess the better question would be why they're even bothering any more when they only support a few ancient Thinkpads and a couple of decade old Apple laptops. For better or worse, I think they've lost this battle.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- rekado 11y agoI'm still using one of these "ancient" Thinkpads (an X200S). It's good enough for my purposes (audio recording, live audio performances, hacking on free software, Emacs, browsing the web). I don't often find myself wishing for a more powerful machine. When I do, I run computations on remote servers.
- jlarocco 11y agoI didn't say the hardware wasn't useful anymore. But it seems like a losing proposition to run and promote a project that's only ever going to run on a handful of ancient laptops. The FAQ explicitly says it's not going to run on any new Intel or AMD processors, which essentially makes it useless for modern desktop, laptop, and server systems. As others have pointed out, it's almost not even possible to buy hardware that's supported.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- moonbug 11y agoI think I'd rather have a machine that has a verified chain of trust from boot than one that will happily run anything.
- geofft 11y agoYup. You don't get software freedom if not only you but everyone else also has the freedom to control what your machine runs. Giving everyone control of your machine is as much of a non-solution as giving only your hardware manufacturer control of your machine; it's simply that one is a better short-term compromise.
- deno 11y ago> everyone else also has the freedom to control what your machine runs. > Giving everyone control of your machine like... [citation needed] Coreboot giving everyone access? The entire point of the project is so you know and can verify there’s no backdoor to your CPU. How do you turn it around 180°…? This is so dishonest.
- geofft 11y agoYou can ensure there's no backdoor in the machine as shipped from the manufacturer. That's extremely important and a good thing to have, and I'm not disputing that. What you'd like to do is make sure that there are no further backdoors, via bootkits, evil maid attacks, whatever. If I can reflash the firmware or insert myself into the boot process, who else can?
- deno 11y agoThere’s usually a jumper you can set on the motherboard that controls whether you can reflash firmware. So you can burn Coreboot and set it back. Also if someone can flash your firmware your security (on the software or physical access side) is already busted and it’s game over anyway.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 11y ago
- moftz 11y agoThey promote freedom but specifically forbid the use of Windows. Not everyone has the choice to not use Windows at certain points in the day, VMs aren't perfect. Forbidding the bare-metal usage of Windows is ridiculous.
- geofft 11y agoI mean, they're promoting the freedom to use a bunch of 2006–2009-era ThinkPads and MacBooks, and if you use the git release, a couple of motherboards from the same time period and maybe one 2015 Chromebook if you're lucky. I appreciate that this work is being done (though I'm unclear on where the coreboot/libreboot line lies, but anyway), but calling it "freedom" is a stretch. It very much feels like the freedom to move to an abandoned island and not pay taxes or be subject to any government.
- nly 11y ago> It very much feels like the freedom to move to an abandoned island and not pay taxes or be subject to any government. Except, unless I'm mistaken, US citizens don't even have that freedom. Unless you renounce your citizenship, you pay US taxes wherever you live, unless there's a tax treaty of some kind in place between the US and your country of residence.
- zokier 11y ago> though I'm unclear on where the coreboot/libreboot line lies afaik libreboot is "just" deblobbed coreboot
- deno 11y ago> It very much feels like the freedom to move to an abandoned island and not pay taxes or be subject to any government. It might be a stretch to be able to use Coreboot for work or entertainment at the moment, unfortunately. But consider that those specs are just fine for most privacy sensitive stuff. Tor, email, banking… etc. So for a separate, trusted, privacy-focused box a few years old, slightly slower CPU is not a big deal. And you get the compartmentalization for free! That’s my perspective, at least.
- 11y ago
- pdkl95 11y agoYet another battle in the War On General Purpose Computers is lost.
- arantius 11y agoFrom the Intel section ( https://libreboot.org/faq/#intelme https://libreboot.org/faq/#intelme ) > If the manifest isn't signed by a specific Intel key, the boot ROM won't load and execute the firmware and the ME processor core will be halted. So if I just overwrite a few bytes of flash on my motherboard (i.e. corrupt the signature), the whole thing is disabled? It says the _ME_ core is halted. But the main CPU continues to run? Are there side effects? Why is this not a solution? Also: is there more (probably community reverse-engineered) documentation on the ME's specifics?