libreboot not supporting post-2008 Intel hardware?

Blibbet blibbet at gmail.com
Wed Jan 20 15:03:57 PST 2016


On 01/12/2016 07:47 AM, Georgi Guninski wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 09:22:34AM -0800, coderman wrote:
>>> One interesting thing about AMD64 is -- *I think* -- that some boards
>>> have blob-free options in the coreboot tree, not relying on AGESA
>>> binaries.
>>
>> if you find any, let me know!  i don't believe they exist.
>> also, BIOS security on AMD may be even worse than Intel.
>> use an external SPI flash programmer, not a built in one, in that case.
>
> Does libreboot support modern AMD?
>
> Didn't see it in supported hardware and in the faq they mention only
> intel.

The blob-free AMD systems are the ones supported prior to this 2014 date
mentioned in the Phoronix and Libreboot FAQ entries below. Current AMD
appears to be binary-only AGESA. AFAICT, if you want a blob-free AGESA,
l look for AMD models targeted in the source drops before that 2014
cutoff. It would be really useful to know if any of those devices are in
current product, or are only on EBay.

I think it'll be easier to find new Libreboot candidates from the new
ARM-based Chromebooks, instead of focusing on Intel/AMD.

AMD (and Intel) aside, and are there any other x86/x64-compatible
vendors out there, like Transmeta?

"In 2011, AMD started cooperating with the coreboot project, releasing
this as source code under a free license. In 2014, they stopped
releasing source code and started releasing AGESA as binary blobs
instead. This makes AGESA now equivalent to Intel FSP."

"More worrying about the prospects for Coreboot on future hardware is
that since the end of 2014, AMD stopped providing open-source AGESA
code. AGESA releases by AMD are now binary-only, with this being the
bootstrap protocol needed to initialize AMD processor cores, memory, and
HyperTransport. Binary AGESA is similar to Intel not opening up their
firmware support packages. "

http://firmwaresecurity.com/2015/08/10/amd-clarifies-firmware-strategy/
http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2014-November/078892.html
https://www.reddit.com/r/libreboot/comments/40q4xd/why_is_the_latest_amd_hardware_unsupported_in/
https://libreboot.org/faq/#amd




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