4 ms·

Me too! @jackpot51 system76 folks - Are your systems currently using opensource boot bios? If not, any plan to do so in near future?

by srcmap 9y ago

jackpot51 9y ago
Not currently. I have experimented with coreboot but did not get far yet. We are tied into AMI for most machines right now, and I would love to cut them out and go open source! We may be experimenting with coreboot more in the near future
- carussell 9y ago
  Would you consider partnering with someone like Dell as a supplier? I've written this elsewhere, but I'll repeat: it seems a shame that folks like System76, Purism, aspiring Kickstarter campaigns et al aren't leveraging the supply chain already in place for Chromebooks. In the case of Purism, for example, x86-64 Chromebooks comparable to Purism's low end models can be had from Dell for 3/4 the asking price of the former. Considering that the driver situation is necessarily a solved problem for Chromebooks, and they're already using coreboot, it seems silly to start a parallel effort to deal in hardware the way System76 and Purism are doing, rather than just approaching Dell about a white label deal to supply you with hardware components that are already known to work.
  - _eht 9y ago
    Alienware went this route and they turned then into mostly generic video card boosted mediocrity. The business model of system76 was what I was personally looking for and I've been very happy with my latest laptop from them. For me personally, the luster would have been lost coming from Dell.
    - carussell 9y ago
      This comment makes no sense.
    - baldfat 9y ago
      > Alienware went this route Alienware was bought by Dell not that they outsourced their hardware.
  - biehl 9y ago
    Dell makes lovely linux-laptops, but I don't think they run coreboot. Partnering with Google for the chromebook supplychain seems like the better theory/plan. A white-label, more configurable, plain ubuntu version of the pixelbook sounds like a dream.
    - carussell 9y ago
      > Dell makes lovely linux-laptops, but I don't think they run coreboot. Dell makes Chromebooks. These Chromebooks run coreboot. Ergo, Dell makes laptops that run coreboot. There's nothing in my comment about building off the back of Dell's existing program to sell Ubuntu machines to customers—a program whose success story is reported to be bizarrely hit-or-miss with respect to driver issues, even. Dell's Chromebooks are a success. They're shipped in large quantities. They have no driver issues. They run coreboot. So my advice is simple: if you're a company trying to sell to folks who want a "Linux laptop", then stop sourcing components/machines from otherwise clueless Wintel vendors and trying to shoehorn a traditional distro onto that. Start with the BOM used in Chromebooks. Approach Dell and say you'd like to place a large order—because that's the business they're in, by the way. Now build your company's products on that platform instead. Substitute "Dell" there with any other competent vendor that has demonstrated their hardware plays well with the FOSS stack powering ChromeOS . > Partnering with Google for the chromebook supplychain seems like the better theory/plan. No, that's an ignorant theory. Google is not known for hardware, and certainly not as a supplier for commodity hardware. Even ignoring all that, the response you should expect from Google in regards to playing along should not be enthusiastic agreement.
      - Buttes 9y ago
        This is a great idea, I'd totally buy a "chromebook" with coreboot and Ubuntu.
- srcmap 9y ago
  FYI, there is a good technical reason in additional to the philosophical one. I used to work on embedded systems where I have full control of uboot. With that, I can easily reserve the section of memory in boot uboot and Linux kernel when the keys logging info (such as FTRACE of ISR, sched switches etc) from kernel are kept. When a kernel panic happens, the system will go thru the warmboot sequence and detected there are logging info in that section of DDR and dump it out before continue to boot. This "postmortem debugging features" make debugging certain category of very difficult bugs (kernel driver panic) much easier. With typical close source x86 bios in Linux laptop, it is very hard to enable this kind of debugging.

Me too! @jackpot51 system76 folks - Are your systems currently using opensource boot bios? If not, any plan to do so in near future?

by srcmap 9y ago

Me too! @jackpot51 system76 folks - Are your systems currently using opensource boot bios? If not, any plan to do so in near future?

jackpot51 9y ago

Not currently. I have experimented with coreboot but did not get far yet. We are tied into AMI for most machines right now, and I would love to cut them out and go open source! We may be experimenting with coreboot more in the near future

carussell 9y ago
Would you consider partnering with someone like Dell as a supplier? I've written this elsewhere, but I'll repeat: it seems a shame that folks like System76, Purism, aspiring Kickstarter campaigns et al aren't leveraging the supply chain already in place for Chromebooks. In the case of Purism, for example, x86-64 Chromebooks comparable to Purism's low end models can be had from Dell for 3/4 the asking price of the former. Considering that the driver situation is necessarily a solved problem for Chromebooks, and they're already using coreboot, it seems silly to start a parallel effort to deal in hardware the way System76 and Purism are doing, rather than just approaching Dell about a white label deal to supply you with hardware components that are already known to work.
- _eht 9y ago
  Alienware went this route and they turned then into mostly generic video card boosted mediocrity. The business model of system76 was what I was personally looking for and I've been very happy with my latest laptop from them. For me personally, the luster would have been lost coming from Dell.
  - carussell 9y ago
    This comment makes no sense.
  - baldfat 9y ago
    > Alienware went this route Alienware was bought by Dell not that they outsourced their hardware.
- biehl 9y ago
  Dell makes lovely linux-laptops, but I don't think they run coreboot. Partnering with Google for the chromebook supplychain seems like the better theory/plan. A white-label, more configurable, plain ubuntu version of the pixelbook sounds like a dream.
  - carussell 9y ago
    > Dell makes lovely linux-laptops, but I don't think they run coreboot. Dell makes Chromebooks. These Chromebooks run coreboot. Ergo, Dell makes laptops that run coreboot. There's nothing in my comment about building off the back of Dell's existing program to sell Ubuntu machines to customers—a program whose success story is reported to be bizarrely hit-or-miss with respect to driver issues, even. Dell's Chromebooks are a success. They're shipped in large quantities. They have no driver issues. They run coreboot. So my advice is simple: if you're a company trying to sell to folks who want a "Linux laptop", then stop sourcing components/machines from otherwise clueless Wintel vendors and trying to shoehorn a traditional distro onto that. Start with the BOM used in Chromebooks. Approach Dell and say you'd like to place a large order—because that's the business they're in, by the way. Now build your company's products on that platform instead. Substitute "Dell" there with any other competent vendor that has demonstrated their hardware plays well with the FOSS stack powering ChromeOS . > Partnering with Google for the chromebook supplychain seems like the better theory/plan. No, that's an ignorant theory. Google is not known for hardware, and certainly not as a supplier for commodity hardware. Even ignoring all that, the response you should expect from Google in regards to playing along should not be enthusiastic agreement.
    - Buttes 9y ago
      This is a great idea, I'd totally buy a "chromebook" with coreboot and Ubuntu.
srcmap 9y ago
FYI, there is a good technical reason in additional to the philosophical one. I used to work on embedded systems where I have full control of uboot. With that, I can easily reserve the section of memory in boot uboot and Linux kernel when the keys logging info (such as FTRACE of ISR, sched switches etc) from kernel are kept. When a kernel panic happens, the system will go thru the warmboot sequence and detected there are logging info in that section of DDR and dump it out before continue to boot. This "postmortem debugging features" make debugging certain category of very difficult bugs (kernel driver panic) much easier. With typical close source x86 bios in Linux laptop, it is very hard to enable this kind of debugging.