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.
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.
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.
@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.
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.
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
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.
Count me in too. As long it is as stable as the current BIOS.
Also, considering how companies like Dell/HP tweak their firmware/BIOS to optimize battery life and performance, perhaps this could be a path forward to optimise battery at firmware and BIOS level.
Signed up to pledge a contribution to crowdfunding on coreboot and a free EC, should one be started.
I fully appreciate that this is not a small ask. I think there are a lot of people willing to put their money behind this. Are there incremental milestones that can be aimed for maybe?
I agree with DMA that this is essential to making the laptop properly available to tinkerers.But this goes so far beyond the practicality, and speaks to the underlying philosophy behind making this kind of hardware. Although it isnt easy or maybe even feasible to achieve totally, the north star ought to be fully open source by default (hardware & software). I think this represents the dream for many of the types who are interested in a Framework laptop in the first place.
Not really, either the BIOS is freed or it isn’t. I don’t think anyone is currently asking for Coreboot to be completely blob-free. So I’ll take Coreboot with the FSP and such still included.
