> I agree, the bootloader is a massive shame! It reminds me of my Loongson 2F laptop powered by a Chinese MIPS processor, same model previously used by Richard

> I agree, the bootloader is a massive shame! It reminds me of my Loongson 2F laptop powered by a Chinese MIPS processor, same model previously used by Richard Stallman. For a while (before Thinkpad X200), it was the go-to choice if one wanted a laptop with 100% free boot firmware and zero binary blob (the original boot firmware codebase is buggy and ancient, but with source, later GNU developers made it run GRUB 2). I got it just because it was an interesting non-x86 machine. It's a bit disappointing that a would-be Russian equivalent couldn't do the same (an understandable problem, the designers of the board have no control over it), otherwise it'll also be a more hackable and interesting platform, at least for those who are fans of exotic non-x86 systems and don't care about price or performance.