[RESPONDED] Coreboot on the Framework Laptop

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I renamed this thread title “Free the EC!” and “Coreboot Only” to “Coreboot on the Framework Laptop”. I know we are familiar with the previous thread title. But the reason is because I want to use this thread as the coreboot main thread, and I expect a discussion involving people outside the Framework community might happen on this thread in near future. A clear name is better for that.

Good bye the thread title ‘“Free the EC!” and “Coreboot Only”’, hello the new title “Coreboot on the Framework Laptop”. By the way, the official name is not “Coreboot” but “coreboot” according to the coreboot - Wikipedia . However the Discourse didn’t allow it.

Dear Community Moderators (@Fraoch @2disbetter @Mirage @Munee), could you change this thread to wiki? I want to add a summary of the coreboot topic on the Framework Laptop to the first comment for everyone to be on the same page.

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Done. :+1:

I wouldn’t worry about the capitalization of the C in coreboot though. Everyone knows there is only one coreboot, and in english, at least, proper nouns are capitalized.

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Thanks! I updated the first comment now. It looks better right?

I just thought calling a project correctly was important to respect people in a project or organization as well as calling a person’s name correctly. Such as “GitHub” not “Git Hub”, “Arm” not “ARM”, and “Framework” not “frame.work” (this is just website’s domain). But yeah I am okay for that.

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When can we expect Coreboot support if ever?

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It’s still not clear. You can see this thread’s first comment (wiki) for details.

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Related to my comment above, I asked Framework support some questions to clarify the coreboot things. The outcome is below.

Q&A

Here are my questions and Framework support’s answers.

Q1.

Whom nrp provided the 3 Framework Laptops to in the coreboot community?

Framework support answered, “I will not be able to provide information on which end users were provided hardware, as this would be a breach of our privacy policy.”.

Q2.

Do the 3 Framework Laptops which nrp sent to the people in the coreboot disable Intel BootGuard fully? Will ask nrp.

Framework support answered, “I can confirm that the three units provided didn’t have Intel BootGuard enabled, however these were based on pre-production hardware designs.”.

Q3-1.

Is the current documentation (not full) without an agreement good enough to port coreboot?

Framework support didn’t answer this question.

Q3-2.

Can individuals in the coreboot community access the full schematics and board views with an agreement? The kb article 2 says it is for repair shops.

Framework support answered, “We did not provide full schematics, as these are only
provided - under NDA - to repair partners.”.

Other notable information

Framework’s support’s first email.

Hi Jun,

Thank you for your patience, I will not be able to provide information on which end users were provided hardware, as this would be a breach of our privacy policy. I can confirm that the three units provided didn’t have Intel BootGuard enabled, however these were based on pre-production hardware designs. We did not provide full schematics, as these are only provided - under NDA - to repair partners.

While aligned with our mission, coreboot is not something we are actively developing at this time.

Regards,

Framework Support

Framework support’s third email.

Hi Jun,

Sorry we do not have additional responses for you at this time. If and when we actively develop coreboot in the future, we will announce and discuss this on our community. Thank you.
Regards,
Framework Support

I also updated this thread’s first wiki comment and commented on the coreboot issue ticket.

References

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Dang, Framework please put more effort into coreboot. It would otherwise be a missed market opportunity IMHO. So many people would love a fully open source laptop. E.g. every single security researcher I’ve asked.

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Question: is there even a coreboot implementation at all for Tiger Lake?

I only ask because I know that there are coreboot implementations for Ice Lake a specific Alder Lake desktop Z690 MSI motherboard and for (mobile) Zen3/Ryzen 5000 as well as the upcoming (mobile) Zen4/Ryzen 7000, but I do not know of any for Tiger Lake.

It’s at least possible that, due to Framework’s lack of human resources, it makes much more sense for any coreboot focus to be on platforms where implementations already exist.

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Like this, you mean? System76 Lemur Pro 10 (lemp10) — coreboot 24.02-168-g1879b6a34a documentation

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I somehow completely forgot about System76…

Regardless, that at least answers my question and negates my hypothesis.

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Actually, I believe that coreboot and Intel ME (HAP) support has been already implemented for alderlake. The starlab has put up machines with intel i5-1260P, and they have been advertising for coreboot and Intel ME disabled thru HAP bit.

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There is more to it than just the cpu/GPU being supported, the BIOS chip and frankly everything else the BIOS interacts with will need support as well otherwise things just won’t work.

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Another +1 for Coreboot on the Framework.

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And another +1 :blush:

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@GhostLegion I dont know why I missed the reply earlier. Everything the bios interacts (except for bios features themselves) are supposingly to be placed in the ec. And FW has already been running on an openec platform so I guess not too much hassle there.

Disabling the Intel ME is another topic. It requires a change on the said hap bit and is usually done by an external flashing. It should not have much of impact on the other functionalities besides breaking the sleep state which requires a workout.

By now, Starlab has implemented said coreboot and disabled me on its new alderlake starbook (or at least advertised so) and system76 has put up their coreboot support for alderlake also (they provided me disabling as a feature available by user request on tigerlake, but I am not aware of the current state on alderlake). I dunno if the FW team can make use of any experience from them.

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Another option worth publicizing: Project X could do for an AMD-based frame.work laptop what coreboot does for the right intel-based CPUs… Yes, it is a process, but there is a real effort behind it if you look into it. And I’ve heard directly from a Project X engineer that more is in the works.

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Hey @junaruga. Could we start a crowd fund to help speed up development on the Coreboot side? It seems to me that may be the best way to get this done. Since so many people here want Coreboot, I think we could come up with a decent amount

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I considered it in the past and communicated both the coreboot community and Framework. Unfortunately, I realized that this doesn’t happen without a will from Framework.

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I would be up for crowd funding if it will help to bring coreboot to the framework

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Please count me in crowd-funding coreboot.

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