On Fri, Jul 12, 2013 at 9:42 AM, ron minnich <rminn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> It's kind of useless to point to a bunch of random laptops with a > compatible chipset. It's never that simple. You don't know what the EC > is or how to talk to it, and you don't have critical info you need to > really make this work. So count on about a year of effort, > potentially. What if there's a magic i2c mux down in there somewhere? > What if there's some weird flash locking? And on and on, it's a long > list. > > If somebody wants a laptop with coreboot today, that has vendor > support, get an acer c7 chromebook. If you can stand the keyboard, > which you really want to test. But it's an incredible deal. > > ron > > To echo what Ron said, if you want to devote the time and resources, those AMD laptops do look tempting. The linux kernel has spoiled us: at the OS level there are de-facto standards, largely dictated by Microsoft. Linux developers spend most of their effort working on 3rd-party add-on hardware support. I'm as concerned about treacherous computing as anybody. But face the facts: coreboot's supported hardware list is just not very comprehensive. And the laptop options right now are Intel-based, all with things like the EC, IMC, ME ... Intel is hard at work adding hidden treacherous computing. Catching up to Intel and beating them at their own game is a tall order. How do you want to help? You can get a Thinkpad right now, with the best coreboot has to offer, knowing full well it isn't 100% free (yet). You can start a porting effort for those AMD laptops. Really, it's a green field and wide open and I think the project is pretty welcoming to new contributors. The only thing you should be aware of is that coreboot is _hard_. Like, harder than Linux, harder than reversing a closed app, harder than unlocking cell phones and rooting them, but imo worth it. Cheers, David
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