Hey, Le lundi 05 juin 2017 à 18:20 +0300, Mike Banon a écrit : > actually Lenovo G505S has more freedom in some relations, if compared > to Chromebook R13 : for example, G505S does not require blobs for WiFi > and Bluetooth if you replace its' preinstalled Broadcom half size mini > PCI-e card with Atheros AR9462 (which has 2.4 GHz + 5 GHz + Bluetooth > and is top-of-the-line ath9k card) and its' price is just $8-$10 with > free shipping included ;)
Well, I don't think that Wi-Fi is really a big deal compared to having coprocessors that can only run proprietary software, in addition to proprietary graphics init along with a proprietary EC. You can easily use an external ath9k_htc USB dongle on CrOS devices instead of the internal one, which solves the Wi-Fi situation easily. There's hope for the G505s though and I truly hope it can get close to the current freedom status of ARM CrOS devices! (And I'm still working hard to improve the EC situation.) > also there are some great technical > opportunities which chromebooks do not have - e.g. you could replace > WiFi mini pci-e card with double SATA ports RAID card, or you can > install 16 GB of RAM because G505S RAM is not soldered ! Still could > get G505S in good condition at many USA / European markets, e.g. > yesterday at eBay I saw G505S based at USA which costs just $95, also > UK-based in nearly mint condition ;) Also there are a lot of spare > parts available, which helps to ensure the long lifetime of this great > performance quad core laptop ( Chromebook is not even close at > performance, as far as I know ) Yeah, those are definitely nice technical features (but they're not freedom- related)! I also have a bit of a hard time with devices I can't replace broken parts for, because they're all soldered onto the same board! Cheers, Paul > On Wed, May 31, 2017 at 11:03 AM, Paul Kocialkowski <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi, > > > > Le mardi 23 mai 2017 à 08:54 +0200, Paul Menzel a écrit : > > > I am looking for a new portable device available in Europe. > > > > > > Is it true, that the Acer Chromebook R 13 [1], is the only current BLOB > > > free device? The device currently costs 400 €. Is MediaTek “a good > > > citizen”, that means, do they provide datasheets and work on drivers? > > > > The Chromebook R13 (elm) is very close to being able to boot without non- > > free > > blobs. The only remaining blobs are the MT8173 PCM firmwares[0] in ARM > > Trusted > > Firmware. I am working hard to liberate them and I'm very confident that it > > will > > happen pretty soon. > > > > However, note that the kernel will require blobs for features such as: > > * hardware video decoding > > * Wi-Fi and bluetooth > > * GPU support > > > > I'm also not sure about the status of the PD (USB type-C controller) chip. > > It > > might also be running a proprietary firmware (maybe someone from the CrOS > > team > > can clarify this). > > > > Also, note that as usual with laptops, there are lots of other non-free > > components around that are preinstalled on the device, such as the webcam > > firmware. > > > > Note that ARMv7 CrOS devices (mainly RK3288 and Tegra K1) can also boot > > blobless > > and generally require less kernel blobs too. They also have much better > > upstream > > Linux support than the ARMv8 ones (which are more recent). For instance, I'm > > running a mainline kernel on the Tegra K1 nyans, which is quite usable > > despite > > some issues that I have left to fix. There's also a very high chance that > > the > > GPU will work with nouveau and free firmwares eventually (I'll be working > > with > > nouveau developers to try and make this happen). > > > > > The Samsung Chromebook Plus/Pro with RK3399 [2] are only available in > > > the USA, right? > > > > I am not aware of it being available in Europe. However, if you're fine with > > a > > qwerty layout, they work just as well in Europe ;) > > > > RK3399 can currently already boot blobless but also requires kernel blobs. > > However, it seems that the boot is currently broken with coreboot master and > > ToT > > depthcharge and vboot (I'll be investigating this soon). > > > > Also, the Chromebook Plus (kevin) does have a free software PD firmware. > > > > Finally, note that the Chromebook Pro is an Intel x86 device, so probably > > not > > very interesting given what you're looking for. > > > > Cheers, > > > > [0]: https://github.com/ARM-software/arm-trusted-firmware/blob/master/plat/m > > ediatek/mt8173/drivers/spm/spm_mcdi.c > > > > -- > > Paul Kocialkowski, developer of free digital technology and hardware support > > > > Website: https://www.paulk.fr/ > > Coding blog: https://code.paulk.fr/ > > Git repositories: https://git.paulk.fr/ https://git.code.paulk.fr/ > > -- > > coreboot mailing list: [email protected] > > https://mail.coreboot.org/mailman/listinfo/coreboot -- Paul Kocialkowski, developer of free digital technology and hardware support Website: https://www.paulk.fr/ Coding blog: https://code.paulk.fr/ Git repositories: https://git.paulk.fr/ https://git.code.paulk.fr/
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