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System76 Will Ship Linux Laptops With Coreboot-Based Open-Source Firmware
- Porthos9K 7y agoSweet. I hope they're working on POWER9 and RISC-V offerings, too. The x86/amd64 monoculture needs to go.
- dublinben 7y agoIt's not a laptop, but the Talos II workstation runs on POWER9 and has open firmware. https://www.raptorcs.com/TALOSII/ https://www.raptorcs.com/TALOSII/
- Porthos9K 7y agoThanks. I'm aware of Raptor CS. I was hoping System76 might offer some competition.
- cmurf 7y agoIt uses OpenBMC firmware, now under The Linux Foundation. EDK2 is also open source, a UEFI implementation. Looks like Coreboot has been around about as long as EFI, and supports most of the same architectures. So is the Coreboot advantage argument mainly that it's simpler than UEFI?
- floatboth 7y agoThat last sentence is a bit nonsensical. Apples and oranges. Coreboot is not a standardized interface for OS boot loaders, Coreboot is only low-level early initialization code. Coreboot loads a payload… like EDK2.
- jackpot51 7y agoI am Jeremy Soller, Principal Engineer at System76. Let me know if you have any questions. The source for this can be found here: https://github.com/system76/firmware-open https://github.com/system76/firmware-open There are instructions there for building and testing the firmware in QEMU, you do not need to have our hardware to try it out.
- kop316 7y agoHello! With only needing the Intel FSP, does that disable the Intel ME? And what other peripherals need closed firmware? You also are not here: https://www.coreboot.org/users.html https://www.coreboot.org/users.html I say that because I have been in the market for a laptop, and I am looking for a free(dom) based laptop. I looked there and it led me down the path of a Purism laptop. Have you also thought about adding some sort of hardware kill switches for Cameras/microphones/Radios?
- jackpot51 7y agoThe laptops which we will be delivering with open firmware will require the FSP and Intel ME, with the Intel GOP driver being an optional component to enable graphics acceleration in UEFI. The ME is disabled by way of a HECI message early in the boot process, so there are no runtime ME components similar to using the HAP bit on older ME versions. I will get https://www.coreboot.org/users.html https://www.coreboot.org/users.html updated as soon as possible.
- floatboth 7y ago> Intel GOP driver being an optional component to enable graphics acceleration in UEFI libgfxinit works even on Kaby Lake now.. but I see that you're using some ridiculously new 10th-Generation stuff for new laptops. > HECI message early in the boot process, so there are no runtime ME components similar to using the HAP bit on older ME versions Hm, I haven't heard of the HAP bit being gone? Also, you can still remove extra ME modules, right?
- jackpot51 7y agoA few things are going on here. libgfxinit support for Comet Lake is coming. The Intel GOP driver is a bit different than this, though. There is an Intel PEIM graphics driver that comes from the PSP, that provides a software-rendering framebuffer similar to what libgfxinit does. The Intel GOP driver provides some hardware acceleration, which is useful especially for HiDPI systems but not critical to device functionality. The HAP bit does not have an effect since ME version 12. ME 12 was used on Coffee Lake systems, and ME 14 is used on Comet Lake systems. These support a different method of disablement using a HECI message, presumably to make dynamic disabling of the ME easier to do. Our firmware always sends this message, having the same effect as setting the HAP bit. me_cleaner does not appear to function on version 14 of the ME. As soon as it does, we will also utilize me_cleaner to remove ME modules.
- Bob312371 7y agoI wonder if that's working for them as a core selling point. Does having an open firmware really steer people into buying one of these laptops? I'm curious to hear from an actual buyer on why they purchased that laptop when there are so many linux friendly options available. For web dev I've been running ubuntu on a virtualbox on my macbook pro for years. It's pretty much just as fast as my fully specced out desktop. Consider the fact that hardware wise they seem to be seriously lacking. All of their laptops have a 1920x1080 display. My 6 year old macbook has a 2880x1800 display. 6 years old! There are a ton of linux friendly options on the market now with 4k displays and even OLED displays.
- darau1 7y agoI got a Gazelle a few days ago, mainly because I didn't want to have to troubleshoot anything when I get it. I wanted a plug and play linux experience, and this is it.
- Bob312371 7y agoThat's a fair point. I tried running Ubuntu & Arch on my macbook and was horrified to find that you have to set up and the fan regulation yourself or else the thing will just cook itself. Not to mention the fun you'll have setting up the wifi and the especially good luck getting multi-touch support work just right.
- darau1 7y agoI installed Arch on a Macbook and couldn't get Ethernet working, but I managed to get wifi up. I do not miss it
- isantop 7y agoBoth the Adder and the Serval are available with 4K displays (The Adder also being OLED). System76 has been providing Linux-friendly laptops for well over a decade, and we take pride in offering the highest-possible performance available in a Linux-ready package. The entire company here is pretty well focused on making everything open, because we believe it truly makes a better product. Many of our customers agree with this philosophy, and so for them this kind of thing is definitely a selling point. For people who are less focused on it, it might not be, but it's definitely never a bad thing.
- awinter-py 7y agoBYO software is my #3 consumer electronics question (after form factor & 'does it work at all') and drivers are an important frontier of this. SO TIRED of downloading blobs to have wifi on linux. AFAIK there isn't even a usb wifi dongle that has an open source wifi driver, much less a commercial wifi chipset. even companies that are in theory dedicated to quality are teetering on the edge of using software to enable planned obsolescence -- and also releasing unpleasant product changes in line with security updates. coreboot particularly interesting because of the TOTP work people have been doing on the TPM for tamper detection.
- floatboth 7y agoMost Wi-Fi blobs are not blob drivers, they're firmware that runs on the Wi-Fi card. For Intel Wi-Fi, FreeBSD includes the firmware out-of-the-box, many Linux distros do the same I'm sure.
- isantop 7y agoYeah, the actual Intel WiFi driver is afiak open source. It's the firmware that's not.
- awinter-py 7y agowait what's the difference? driver runs in kernel, firmware runs in card?
- Avery3R 7y agoYeah
- awinter-py 7y agoare there tools for parsing the firmware bin? are they a threat vector? is it like a settings file?
- yellowapple 7y ago
- rsync 7y agoI would love to buy an open, linux-based laptop to replace my aging 11" MBA but these are huge laptops - the smallest has a 14" screen. Should I be looking at the Pinebook 11" ?
- isantop 7y agoThe Galago is actually about the same size as 13 inch laptops a few years ago. Bezel reduction has contributed a lot to shrinking laptops.
- timidiceball 7y agoThere are a lot of great deals on MacBook 12's now that it's end of line. I think you'll probably find the Pinebook 11" seriously lacking in power. Otherwise consider a Surface Laptop! The 3:2 aspect ratio is surprisingly sticky
- Ardon 7y agoThere’s the pinebook pro going out now. It’s not going to blow you away with its speed, but it’s much better than the OG pinebook
- lonelappde 7y agoPinebook pro is 14" following the apple model of "more power must have a bigger screen". But it's a pretty low end system intended for experimentation. The store page warns you not to buy it if you are picky about hardware quality.
- sh-run 7y agoI own a pinebook. It's a fun little machine, but if you need anything other than light web browsing (without javascript) and basic text editing it's insufficient. It's also based on an Allwinner SoC that only has ok Linux support: https://linux-sunxi.org/Main_Page https://linux-sunxi.org/Main_Page. Also, the keyboard is cramped and has an odd layout.
- jdhawk 7y agoinstall linux on the MBA? Its kept my 2011 13" alive and kicking
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jerrac 7y agoIt took some work, but I convinced my employer to spring for a Darter Pro. I'm pretty happy with it. My previous laptop was a 2016 Dell XPS 13. I've found the larger screen on my Darter to be a lot easier to work on. Though, I do spend most of my time docked with multiple monitors. My only real complaint is that when the fan ramps up, it is really loud. Loud enough to distract from meetings.... I haven't dug into the different tools for fan control much yet, but if anyone from System76 sees this, it'd be awesome if you implemented a nice ui for that.
- vannevar 7y agoI tried to get through this article, but the popups and advertising widgets made the page unreadable. A more accessible article can be found here: https://liliputing.com/2019/10/system76-launches-two-linux-with-comet-lake-chips-and-coreboot.html https://liliputing.com/2019/10/system76-launches-two-linux-w...
- albertzeyer 7y agoRecently there was a discussion about Huawei MateBook X Pro, which also seems to be a great Linux notebook: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21170765 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21170765 In that discussion, several other good Linux notebooks were also discussed, including System 76. But it was reported there that the quality is quite bad: > but the quality is reportedly bad (flaky hardware, too-fast power drain, reflash bios to toggle discrete graphics (!), slow support) https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/review-system76-oryx-pro https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/review-system76-oryx-pr... > Mine is in the System 76 repair shop right now for the third time. Extremely unsatisfied with Oryx Pro materials and build quality. Oh it's back for the third time because when they replaced the top case last time, they installed a defective touch pad. Never again. I wonder if that has been improved, as I'm really interested in a high quality Linux notebook.
- pram 7y agoThey don't make the hardware, all their laptops are rebadges of Clevo/Sager https://www.sagernotebook.com/Notebook-NP8454.html https://www.sagernotebook.com/Notebook-NP8454.html
- jay_kyburz 7y agoI bought a Clevo rebadge called a Metabox here in Australia and have all kinds of problems with it. Keys that stick down, headphone jack busted, one of the USB not working, a few other things. I never sent it back on warranty because I would have to buy a new machine to work on while it was away anyhow. I'll just put up with the problems until the next upgrade cycle. It sits on my desk now with an external keyboard, external USB hub, and external DAC for the headphones to work.
- pgeorgi 7y agoI haven't worked with Clevo, but apparently they provide quite some flexibility. A vendor can use their own choice of keyboard, extra buttons, ports placements, hinges, ... I guess Clevo would even be up to designing a new PCB around a different CPU by a different vendor, but "use this type of keyboard" will be much cheaper to commission than "swap out the CPU vendor". So I'd expect keyboard issues to be more up to Metabox choosing the cheapest option for that part, rather than a systemic Clevo failure.
- api 7y agoI love what System76 is doing, but I have to say that the name Pop OS is just horrible. It just screams "toy" and sounds like a name that would come out of some fly by night junkware vendor. The exclamation mark makes it even worse. It's almost as bad as ending a name with "-ster." Naming is hard, but almost anything would be better. If in doubt I'd go with something bland like "System76 Linux." I bring this up because for the past 20 years closed silos and locked down platforms have won almost entirely on the basis of UI/UX and polish. System76's hardware looks good at first glance, but everything else matters too. An OS name that says "this is a toy and will be useless for real work" is a real problem for wider adoption. Even worse the name tends to transfer via mental association onto the hardware, conveying the idea that this laptop will fall apart.
- projektir 7y agoYeah I agree but I've been using it for 5 months now and it's great and I can't say I care about the name that much anymore.
- temptemptemp111 7y agoEven worse, such a company should be focusing on hardware not both hardware and software!
- amdelamar 7y agoAgree. Also their webpage for Pop!_OS[1] should show front-and-center what the GUI/Desktop looks like, not the logo of the OS name. They should take note of elementary's landing page.[2] - [1] https://system76.com/pop https://system76.com/pop - [2] https://elementary.io https://elementary.io
- api 7y agoThe Pop page on system76.com is just bizarre. It leads with things that are really niche interests and you have to scroll way down to get to what the desktop looks like. My 30 second impression is "this is for children who want to program toy robot kits." I am posting this criticism in the hopes that it's constructive, since I do like what system76 is doing. I use a Mac right now but I'd consider their laptops as one of the first possibilities if I ever abandoned the Mac platform.
- SirensOfTitan 7y agoI spent a lot of time deliberating on what to replace my 13” MBP with. The idea of more open hardware is attractive, but both system76 and purism fell short (mainly battery life) I ended up going with a Lenovo x1 carbón extreme and threw ArchLinux on it. The trackpad is worse, and battery life isn’t quite as good (I feel like I can optimize this, but haven’t had the chance yet), but it’s such a capable machine. I feel quite happy with it.
- pgeorgi 7y ago> battery life isn’t quite as good powertop --auto-tune is a good first start in my experience.
- bproven 7y agoyeah and tlp - although my guess is i think the nvidia graphics are hurting you here
- Antoninus 7y agoI was leaning towards making the same switch this year and giving up my mid-2015 MBP. I've read so many stories like yours and decided against it.
- 3f2d8ccbd53b 7y agoHi I would REALLY like to see a modern coreboot laptop with a 3k (or 4k) "retina"-type display. System76, if you can make this happen, you have a sale!
- usebunsby 7y agoAre there any good laptops other thinkpads for this os?
- SmellyGeekBoy 7y agoDell XPS (9560 in my case).
- tomrod 7y agoDang it, I just missed this. We picked up a meerkat a month back and it has performed superbly.
- ckdarby 7y agoWorst company to buy a Linux laptop from. I attempted to purchase a laptop from them in the past and got hit with crazy duties even though the wording on the site made it appear that there were none. Simply better to buy a certified Dell laptop such as: Latitude 7490 or Latitude 7480
- avellable 7y agoI had the same experience with Darter Pro. Also the laptop's touchpad wasn't working properly from the beginning. When I contacted them, they kept asking me to try a lot of things on my own. I tried them for a while. I am developer, I like trying to fix things on my own upto certain extent. But when I pay crazy amount for something to someone, I expect them to fix it. Also the display stopped working after a week and they blamed me for cracking the screen, even though I kept the laptop in a bag all the time. The support was bad too. I would get response from different person on same support request for every new message. It bothered me because it looked like the new person who replied next time had no idea about the history of the support request.
- swebs 7y agoWhat country did you order to?
- ckdarby 7y agoCanada. I'm aware there's duties but when I had ordered their website made it seen like they handled these. I refused to pay the extra like $150 for the laptop and sent it back.
- dhanvanthri 7y agoThese computers runs blobs in the firmware and are not fully open source. I understand that modern users want modern performance, and that there is only a niche market for a librebooted computer (mostly due to performance), and as a company, it's systems76's responsibility to meet the market. But solutions exist, and if you are trying to market an open source computer, then give me an open source computer. What I hate most is how the top comment is from Jeremy Soller, but they are literally using this forum as a marketing platform, only responding to the queries that potray their initiative as good, and ignoring the literal highest comment directly under their post. This is so disingenuous, give me true libre laptop. (C-f tpearson-raptor on this post, they even offers a real solution from raptor to try and make this real). I'm grossed out.
- rapsey 7y ago> that there is only a niche market for a librebooted computer (mostly due to performance), and as a company, it's systems76's responsibility to meet the market They have no responsibility of the sort.
- dhanvanthri 7y agoI just meant in terms of aligning with their profit motive; i guess the correct word is incentive, rather than responsibility. I see your point
- dhanvanthri 7y agoI'm not able to update my post, so I'll leave my edit here: EDIT: If I wanted an ALMOST foss laptop, I would buy a laptop and coreboot it myself. The reason that it's exciting for a company to be doing something like this is because they have leverage in their decisions that I don't as a customer (custom cpu, custom components, choosing components with open firmware that already have good interoperability on the platform etc)
- tpearson-raptor 7y agoYou might be ascribing quite a bit more leverage to System76 than they actually have here. No one is going to get Intel or AMD to allow open PSP/ME firmware -- AIUI even Google, with the truckloads of chips they buy, isn't able to influence that decision at either x86 vendor. Plus, System76 isn't the ODM -- that's Clevo from what I understand, so their influence on the two x86 CPU vendor(s) will be so far removed as to be quite insignificant IME. Now, offering something else (ARM, RISC-V, POWER, anything but x86) as a truly open source alternative, then seeing if there was any reaction, might start to apply some small degree of leverage. Definitely there would be more potential opportunities to meaningfully discuss design goals with silicon vendors other than Intel and AMD. Who knows, maybe this could still happen...it'd be pretty easy / cheap to get some POWER desktop offerings lined up based on existing mainboards, and Clevo might be persuaded to do an ARM laptop design based on one of the Chromebook SoCs... ;) With our baseline blob-free systems, we picked parts that were firmware-free, had open firmware, or could have open firmware written in the future. This is why we don't have onboard 100Gbe, Thunderbolt, or other interfaces that would require relinquishing control of the system to an external vendor. However, the resulting products are quite functional as both PCs and servers, with no real complaints or concerns over the I/O given the multiple PCIe Gen 4 slots available. My understanding is that very few ODMs do this, as they don't want to make that tradeoff, but this is how you apply leverage to silicon vendors long term. And you know what? It's working (outside the GPU sphere at least) -- Raptor isn't the only one pushing hard on these topics from the OpenPOWER side, and so far we've been able to get the silicon we need for our current product lines.
- tsp 7y agoI wish their shipping costs to Germany wouldn’t be that expensive. Hardware + tax + shipping costs is just way too expensive. I wanted to buy an Oryx Pro recently, but had to go for another model (non System76) because of this.
- 2wrist 7y agoThis has been a blooming marvellous, if depressing read. I long for the future of open RISC-V/OpenPOWER/Arm/MIPS coherent platforms. Thanks for your efforts and best of luck.
- OJFord 7y agoIs the value in the custom distro that's well tested with the shipped hardware, do we think? i.e. If I want a laptop to put <something else> on, might I as well have a ThinkPad/Dell XPS/Purism Librem? I just don't particularly like the look of the chassis, and I'm sure there's nowhere I can see them in person to check. It's a shame that Macbooks essentially don't work with Linux any more: https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux (yes there are workarounds and maybe it doesn't all matter - but needing a WiFi dongle is a bit of show stopper).
- 1337shadow 7y agoLooks fantastic ! Overall a better deal than thinkpad, but would like to have the option for a second battery instead of second disk and a joyclit too if that's possible
- npx 7y agoI love this concept and I love that it is proliferating. Purism offers what I'd consider to be more attractive hardware, but that's very subjective. As of Kubuntu 19.10, I actually consider Linux to be the best operating system for a laptop.I look forward for 20.04 and a few years of near total disregard for updates. I want to be an AMD fanboy! I want (at least) 16 cores, 32 threads, a fully open source graphics stack, Wayland, flicker free boot, and open source firmware as described here. As it is, I just had to go with Intel/NVidia because it's more seamless. Even though I'm not really using the NVidia GPU, I do have it available if I want to work with Tensorflow etc. Ultimately, for me it is a question of stability but I hope that these systems can really close the gap. I want something like this System76 machine with very good support for encrypted ZFS right out of the box. I don't know if that would entail LUKS or ZFS encryption, but I want it to work. I want a USB key that actually serves as a key and allows me to boot or otherwise unlock the system. Again, I'd prefer this to be a fully open source AMD/ATI system based on Kubuntu. With ZFS, bpftrace, and Docker... this is what Solaris wanted to be when it grew up. I'm not sure how big the market for this would be, but I'd pay good American money if anyone catered to it. Right now I'm using a Dell G3 Intel/Nvidia laptop which, in fairness, is obscenely fast.
- lonelappde 7y agoIf you aren't using a GPU regularly, Why not use a cloud gpu? Cloud CPU is cheap as free if it's just occasional playing around, vs $100 to $1000 and all the manufacturing pollution to be stuck with a GPU you don't use
- npx 7y agoI wanted to use the NVidia GPU in this laptop, it just doesn't work as well as the Intel GPU (I hate screen tearing). I think this will be great as a development environment once I get around to making Docker work with the NVidia drivers (allegedly it should). I'm not sure if you can do the same thing with AMD gear but the ability to create a Tensorflow NN and distribute it as a hardware accelerated Docker image is pretty cool.