10 ms·

Coreboot 4.11

100 points by gautamcgoel 7y ago

dpcx 7y ago
As someone who doesn't know what Coreboot does, not having this information in the first paragraph of this post isn't super useful. Add to the problem that clicking on the Coreboot logo only takes me to the front page of the blog - and there are no links to the actual homepage...
- jesusc123 7y ago
  It would take you less time to remove the blog.*, click Enter and read the god damn description which is on their homepage. I hope you are not that miserable IRL, in case you are - I suggest therapy
  - new_realist 7y ago
    This is a very common problem which reduces the utility of news sites generally.
    - edjrage 7y ago
      Don't feed the troll.
- type0 7y ago
  It's a CORE part of your system that you could use to BOOT you computer
  - segfaultbuserr 7y ago
    haha, I nominate you for the HN comment of the day.
- gsaga 7y ago
  The about page of blog has 1 paragraph description of coreboot.
- brian_herman__ 7y ago
  "coreboot is an extended firmware platform that delivers a lightning fast and secure boot experience on modern computers and embedded systems. As an Open Source project it provides auditability and maximum control over technology." https://coreboot.org/ https://coreboot.org/
  - StillBored 7y ago
    Which means nothing other than its open source and doesn't follow any standards. If google put 1/2 the effort into edk2 the world would be a lot closer to a general purpose opensource firmware that actually works with things like option roms, and booting on random boards instead of some tiny subset of boards that google has beaten people into porting it onto.
    - paulddraper 7y ago
      > Which means nothing other than its open source and doesn't follow any standards. I think you missed the first sentence.
      - StillBored 7y ago
        ? Which of those aren't provided by edk2? Have you see how fast it is on small embedded boards? Its basically instant boot the same way as uboot is, it also supports the secure boot standard, capsule update, and most of what one expects out of a modern BIOS. So, yah, if you turn on boot debugging, and enable a pile of drivers for USB/PCIe/etc it gets slower because it can actually probe and boot from random USB & PCIe devices, and display a graphical boot menu using a random GPU. Still, the longest delay tends to be the boot prompt sleep/delay which can be shortened/removed.
        nickik 7y ago
        > ? Which of those aren't provided by edk2? What does that have to do with anything? Your argument was that the description was not descriptive but it was. So your point was wrong and made no sense. Then you start ranting about coreboot. So clearly your argument was not about the description, you just wanted to shit on coreboot. And just btw, building a whole new OS to put under your OS is nonsense from pretty much every perspective.
- jotm 7y ago
  Open source replacement for BIOS, basically
  - jolmg 7y ago
    That's a very nice summary. I found the Wiki article[1] most helpful, too. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coreboot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coreboot
gautamcgoel 7y ago
I wish they had more support for consumer desktop motherboards, so I could flash my Asus board. Somehow coreboot seems to focus on laptops and server boards.
- segfaultbuserr 7y ago
  For a successful port: the hardware must attract the interest of a team of developers, so this hardware platform... (1) must be available globally. (2) must be valued by developers as worthwhile, i.e. for a specific propose. (3) must be relatively easy to reverse engineer, e.g. platform is not too new. Thinkpad laptops are already popular among developers and hackers, and used machines and motherboards can be obtained cheaply for a low price, each generation often uses a pretty standard design, only with a newer chipset. As a result, it became the "reference machine" for a lot of developers, including developers working on security and privacy projects. The server motherboard is a thing because there are hardware hackers who are interested in FOSS-friendly and secure server platforms. On the other hand, there are huge numbers of consumer desktop motherboards with a lot of variations, every single one needs to be reverse-engineered independently. We don't see a platform to gain the critical mass yet.
IntelMiner 7y ago
I was always interested in using Coreboot for "retro" machines that have buggy old vendor BIOSes, and may not even have updates available anymore (or easily found) Is there anywhere I can find out about the actual status of things like Coreboot on Pentium III (Slot 1 or Socket 370) motherboards? I know they maintain a "compatibility list" but I'm not sure if these boards have been tested or if they'd have been lost to code churn
- segfaultbuserr 7y ago
  The lifeblood of FOSS drivers, or coreboot in this case, is developers who are using/interested in the machine. Unfortunately, I don't see many Pentium-III fans in the coreboot community. And there was a major refactor in the coreboot codebase since 4.0, the support of many old platforms have been killed.
- Zenst 7y ago
  https://coreboot.org/status/board-status.html https://coreboot.org/status/board-status.html
1-6 7y ago
"Ron Minnich is a Software Engineer at Google. He has been writing firmware for 40 years, starting with the z80 and 6800. He's also a long time contributor in the Unix, BSD, Plan 9, and Linux communities. He started the LinuxBIOS project in 1999, which was renamed to coreboot in 2008 and is now used in tens of millions of Chromebooks. His most recent effort, LinuxBoot, is now part of the Linux Foundation and aims to bring the benefits of a full Linux kernel to several firmware environments, including coreboot, u-boot, and UEFI." https://www.opencompute.org/blog/ronald-minnich-google-and-gundrala-goud-microsoft-named-project-leads-for-the-ocp-open-system-firmware-project https://www.opencompute.org/blog/ronald-minnich-google-and-g...

100 points by gautamcgoel 7y ago

dpcx 7y ago

As someone who doesn't know what Coreboot does, not having this information in the first paragraph of this post isn't super useful. Add to the problem that clicking on the Coreboot logo only takes me to the front page of the blog - and there are no links to the actual homepage...

jesusc123 7y ago
It would take you less time to remove the blog.*, click Enter and read the god damn description which is on their homepage. I hope you are not that miserable IRL, in case you are - I suggest therapy
- new_realist 7y ago
  This is a very common problem which reduces the utility of news sites generally.
  - edjrage 7y ago
    Don't feed the troll.
type0 7y ago
It's a CORE part of your system that you could use to BOOT you computer
- segfaultbuserr 7y ago
  haha, I nominate you for the HN comment of the day.
gsaga 7y ago
The about page of blog has 1 paragraph description of coreboot.
brian_herman__ 7y ago
"coreboot is an extended firmware platform that delivers a lightning fast and secure boot experience on modern computers and embedded systems. As an Open Source project it provides auditability and maximum control over technology." https://coreboot.org/ https://coreboot.org/
- StillBored 7y ago
  Which means nothing other than its open source and doesn't follow any standards. If google put 1/2 the effort into edk2 the world would be a lot closer to a general purpose opensource firmware that actually works with things like option roms, and booting on random boards instead of some tiny subset of boards that google has beaten people into porting it onto.
  - paulddraper 7y ago
    > Which means nothing other than its open source and doesn't follow any standards. I think you missed the first sentence.
    - StillBored 7y ago
      ? Which of those aren't provided by edk2? Have you see how fast it is on small embedded boards? Its basically instant boot the same way as uboot is, it also supports the secure boot standard, capsule update, and most of what one expects out of a modern BIOS. So, yah, if you turn on boot debugging, and enable a pile of drivers for USB/PCIe/etc it gets slower because it can actually probe and boot from random USB & PCIe devices, and display a graphical boot menu using a random GPU. Still, the longest delay tends to be the boot prompt sleep/delay which can be shortened/removed.
      - nickik 7y ago
        > ? Which of those aren't provided by edk2? What does that have to do with anything? Your argument was that the description was not descriptive but it was. So your point was wrong and made no sense. Then you start ranting about coreboot. So clearly your argument was not about the description, you just wanted to shit on coreboot. And just btw, building a whole new OS to put under your OS is nonsense from pretty much every perspective.
jotm 7y ago
Open source replacement for BIOS, basically
- jolmg 7y ago
  That's a very nice summary. I found the Wiki article[1] most helpful, too. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coreboot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coreboot

gautamcgoel 7y ago

I wish they had more support for consumer desktop motherboards, so I could flash my Asus board. Somehow coreboot seems to focus on laptops and server boards.

segfaultbuserr 7y ago
For a successful port: the hardware must attract the interest of a team of developers, so this hardware platform... (1) must be available globally. (2) must be valued by developers as worthwhile, i.e. for a specific propose. (3) must be relatively easy to reverse engineer, e.g. platform is not too new. Thinkpad laptops are already popular among developers and hackers, and used machines and motherboards can be obtained cheaply for a low price, each generation often uses a pretty standard design, only with a newer chipset. As a result, it became the "reference machine" for a lot of developers, including developers working on security and privacy projects. The server motherboard is a thing because there are hardware hackers who are interested in FOSS-friendly and secure server platforms. On the other hand, there are huge numbers of consumer desktop motherboards with a lot of variations, every single one needs to be reverse-engineered independently. We don't see a platform to gain the critical mass yet.

IntelMiner 7y ago

I was always interested in using Coreboot for "retro" machines that have buggy old vendor BIOSes, and may not even have updates available anymore (or easily found) Is there anywhere I can find out about the actual status of things like Coreboot on Pentium III (Slot 1 or Socket 370) motherboards? I know they maintain a "compatibility list" but I'm not sure if these boards have been tested or if they'd have been lost to code churn

segfaultbuserr 7y ago
The lifeblood of FOSS drivers, or coreboot in this case, is developers who are using/interested in the machine. Unfortunately, I don't see many Pentium-III fans in the coreboot community. And there was a major refactor in the coreboot codebase since 4.0, the support of many old platforms have been killed.
Zenst 7y ago
https://coreboot.org/status/board-status.html https://coreboot.org/status/board-status.html

1-6 7y ago

"Ron Minnich is a Software Engineer at Google. He has been writing firmware for 40 years, starting with the z80 and 6800. He's also a long time contributor in the Unix, BSD, Plan 9, and Linux communities. He started the LinuxBIOS project in 1999, which was renamed to coreboot in 2008 and is now used in tens of millions of Chromebooks. His most recent effort, LinuxBoot, is now part of the Linux Foundation and aims to bring the benefits of a full Linux kernel to several firmware environments, including coreboot, u-boot, and UEFI." https://www.opencompute.org/blog/ronald-minnich-google-and-gundrala-goud-microsoft-named-project-leads-for-the-ocp-open-system-firmware-project https://www.opencompute.org/blog/ronald-minnich-google-and-g...