I mean yeah that’s factually true, given how long people have been begging for Intel and AMD both do so and yet it still hasn’t happened
So I’m not going to hold bated breath on a maybe
Intel’s ME is much better understood and Intel’s chips are actually well supported in Coreboot
So unless we want to pay for Framework to hire firmware engineers (which I’m perfectly happy supporting, beats most Coreboot commits coming from Google engineering teams) to add support for Ryzen/Zen to Coreboot
Until AMD and Intel change their minds, the PSP and ME will remain blackboxes and no amount of wishing otherwise will change that
And I’m not putting down the movement-check my featured topic by clicking my profile name for heavens sake
My desire for libre firmware is quite ardent and I’m very much hoping to see Coreboot support in the next iteration
IMO, the biggest issues with eGPU’s isn’t the bandwidth of the port.
It’s software. This is handled by Windows, not at a BIOS level like some of the proprietary eGPU connectors.
Most GPU’s wouldn’t saturate a 8x PCI 3.0 link, let alone anything faster. In a gaming load. (Yes I know there’s other tasks that will use more)
MXM is nearly dead, they will also add a lot of bulk to the device compared to a soldered GPU.
Well as seen here: Framework , they are very much in the midst of us paying for a firmware engineer, so I don’t know where your point of “unless we want to pay” was going. I agree with the coreboot sentiment, they’ve already mentioned they want to do opensource firmware in the future. Their mentioning planning for other platforms besides x86_64 already suggests they are looking into ARM or possibly RISC-V, which are quite suitable for an open firmware approach.
One option is they could have an Intel board with nothing special in terms of its firmware, and alternatively have a non-x86_64 board that focuses on the privacy/security crowd within their market.
I’ll be honest, I haven’t looked at their job postings because it’s not been of interest to me, I’m not applying so I didn’t know
I’m grateful they are hiring although surprised
I only know of one manufacturer that isn’t Dell or their ilk that does both board design and firmware engineering and that’s Purism-hardly a model to follow
Doubly surprised now that I think about considering the price delta between Purism’s offerings and Framework
I wonder if the price will rise and if so, how much?
Edit: Looking back in thread reminds me of more precisely my thought process
We were talking about neutralizing the PSP or ME, it’ll take a lot more than 2 engineers to accomplish that
Right on. However I do think it’s the right amount in order to work with other development teams like those at Coreboot. Having one or two people passing official information and specs to grease the development wheel, as well as being able to articulate and fix issues “real time” with the design and manufacturing teams would more than pay itself back in ease of adoption. I think it’s easy to see where the money would come from when one looks at the market for second hand Thinkpad t400s on ebay and other FSF approved hardware. There’s at least a moderate amount of buyers within the market including myself who would do/pay a lot for ME-free hardware. Even the number of currently in development or dead projects on crowdsupply for that kind of system is more than enough to make two salaries not much of a concern.
I’d pay 50% more today if they had Tiger Lake in such a state and double if they could get Alder Lake anywhere near that
I’d be tempted to miss out on this generation entirely and by a laptop from Purism if their products weren’t essentially vaporware and they had decent customer support
They’ve got Comet Lake pretty freed but I badly want an improved iGPU that isn’t complete trash
The laptop I’m using now is Ice Lake and I have basically no complaints as far as performance goes