date:20140325

On Monday, March 24, 2014 10:31:49 PM ron minnich wrote:
 On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 9:10 PM, mrnuke mr.nuke...@gmail.com wrote:
   * For example, a hardwired boot blob which has been RE'd so that we know
  what it does and how it does it, would be acceptable (see Allwinner).
 
 Hard for me to agree with this, but if that's ok with you, it's ok with me.
 If you are claiming to understand
 what an RE'd blob does then you've solved the halting problem, I think.
 
I know what the Allwinner BROM does, I know it will go into a special USB mode 
if the boot fails, and that mode has the capability to inject and executw 
arbitrary code via USB OTG, and can also modify contents of NAND, MMC, SPI 
flash, etc. Does that kill any hopes of security? Yes. Does it maky any less 
free? No.

   * A non-ISA (a) firmware blob which controls a piece of hardware which
i) can only do one thing
ii) without compromising the security of the system
iii) and is non-essential for the functioning of the system
 
 Interesting. From a security POV I'm a lot more worried about usb3 firmware
 than about the MRC. As far as I'm concerned USB 3 firmware is a persistent
 embedded threat, violating point ii. The ME is of course far worse. Of these
 I find the MRC the *least* threatening.

I guess that depends on how capable the USB3 micro is. But OK, USB3 firmware 
is not accepted for the purpose of this conversation.

   * An ISA blob which is NOT essential for the bring-up of the system, and
  can reasonably be replaced by a free alternative. This basically includes
  VGA BIOSes.
 
 Makes no sense to me either. If the ISA blob is in place, then it's no
 different than MRC, save that
 it is almost certainly persistent. In fact it's more dangerous than the ME.
 Until it's replaced, it can at any point compromise the security of the
 system.
 
The idea is that the system be RYF capable. This doesn't mean it can be RYF 
with such blobs. If replacing these blobs is reasonably doable by a group of 
non-commercial guys, then we consider this a non-issue in the context of 
picking a hardware candidate. Simply put, these blobs should be replaceable in 
the medium term, so the system can be brought to a RYF state. A VGA BIOS meets 
these weird criteria. (I did say my views on blobs are weird, didn't I?)

  a branch containing that hash is not available publicly.
 
 Baloney. Your not finding it does not mean it's not available. It means you
 didn't look hard enough.
 
I call baloney on this one. I do not have to look hard enough. Section 3 
defines how hard I should look. My chromebook came with no corresponding 
source code, and no written offer for the source code. So no, I don't have to 
jailbreak the device to get to a root shell, read the flash, dd the BIOS_STUB 
out of there, and run cbfstool to extract the .config in order to find out I'm 
running coreboot commit ff1f4757e4bd35a6b72018d0982b5e2bec89a1bb

Did I mention the manufacturer (the one whose name was on the box) explicitly 
responded to my request for source code with we don't give that away?

  This is where I've been meaning to get to. I'm all for doing what the new
  title of this (hijacked) thread says: a new, modern long-term coreboot
  supported laptop which is Respects Your Freedom certifiable. A laptop
  that
  will become what the X60 is today.
 
 I'm wondering: what's wrong with the HP11? It goes much further today than
 any x86 laptop toward RYF. The MRC is source. There's no ME. The EC code is
 also open source. Why not start there? Sure, it's not coreboot; sure, it's
 not x86; who cares? It's totally RYF. And coreboot can run on it, I bet, if
 you care.
 
It won't be available for purchase much longer, and it's not very practical as 
a day to day laptop due to its tiny screen. A lot of drawbacks, but sure, it 
is a valid candidate nonetheless.

Carl-Daniel was flinging the idea of a laptop with long shelf life. He found 
something just recently IIRC. Not cheap, but supposedly sturdy and with an 
expected shelf like of at least 2 more years.

Oh yeah, can you tell us anything about the Samsung Chromebook 2?

  Chose the hardware. Set up a github temporary fork. Send me the hardware.
  I  got Pomona, I got SPI, I got USB debug, and I got the burning desire to
  make this happen.
 
 I think that's wonderful, and you need to find a way to make it happen.
 Right now, as you have seen, laptop vendors are not breaking down the doors
 at AMD to use their chipsets in a laptop. There are reasons.
 
Yeah. AMD parts usually end up in cheap laptops that are not expected to stay 
in one piece for more than a month. Although performance-wise, I still miss my 
old AMD laptop.

 The volunteers need to lead this AMD effort, and the first step is finding
 the person to make it happen, and the next step is finding money.
 
 But, first, you really ought to make sure it's AMD you want, not ARM. And
 once you pick out a laptop, fill out the blob matrix, please, so we know
 what's going

Re: [coreboot] libpayload for ARM with sprinklings of GPL and coreboot code sharing

2014-03-25 Thread Patrick Georgi


Am 2014-03-25 05:36, schrieb Stefan Reinauer:

Is there any single BSD licensed payload out there? That's using
libpayload? The work around of stuffing drivers into depthcharge is
really, really unfortunate because it causes unnecessary duplication
I think I (and you) ported some libpayload code into corebootPkg. Maybe 
we need to split things up a bit?


coreboot support code (ie coreboot tables, cbfs and the like) should 
probably remain as flexible as possible.

flash writing may well be GPL. (and ideally comes from libflashrom)


Patrick

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Re: [coreboot] A new, modern coreboot long-term support laptop

2014-03-25 Thread Paul Menzel

Am Montag, den 24.03.2014, 22:36 -0700 schrieb David Hendricks:
On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 9:10 PM, mrnuke mr.nuke...@gmail.com wrote:

Chose the hardware. Set up a github temporary fork. Send me the hardware. I
got Pomona, I got SPI, I got USB debug, and I got the burning desire to
make this happen.

I like your attitude. See if there's a laptop that looks doable in the
~$500 range, buy two of 'em, and tell me how to reimburse you.

Note: $$$ would come from my own pocket and has nothing to do with my
employer.

David, thank you for that offer.

Vladimir also hinted in #coreboot, if the hardware would be given to him
he *could* try a port (with no promises of course). He was on vacation,
so I waited to bring this up on the list. I am sure more people would
sponsor such an effort. The question is how to best do that, so people
do not get problems with taxes and so on?

A Kickstarter/something similar campaign?

If at least Alex and Vladimir participate, we’d need two to four
laptops, depending how critical a second model is to have for
development.

Note 2: This might be a good place to start:
https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/#/c/188275/

The other question is to decide on a laptop. Only the HP Elitebooks seem
to have a long shelf life, but these do not look like consumer products
and look more to be for companies if I am not mistaken.

http://www.heise.de/preisvergleich/hp-probook-6475b-b5u26aw-b6p75ea-a798418.html
http://www.heise.de/preisvergleich/hp-probook-655-g1-h5g82et-a1034671.html
http://www.heise.de/preisvergleich/hp-probook-455-g1-h6p57ea-a962206.html

I had my hands on a Asus U38N-C4010H which was very well manufactured in
my opinion and a nice consumer laptop.

http://www.heise.de/preisvergleich/asus-vivobook-u38n-c4010h-90ntia212n12925d151y-a863881.html

In the IRC channel #coreboot also the Lenovo X131e was mentioned. I have
no idea what to make of that AMD E1-1200 processor.

http://www.heise.de/preisvergleich/lenovo-thinkpad-x131e-3372-1a6-a998573.html

Thanks,

Paul

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Re: [coreboot] A new, modern coreboot long-term support laptop

2014-03-25 Thread David Hendricks

On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 1:05 AM, Paul Menzel
paulepan...@users.sourceforge.net wrote:

Am Montag, den 24.03.2014, 22:36 -0700 schrieb David Hendricks:
On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 9:10 PM, mrnuke mr.nuke...@gmail.com wrote:

Chose the hardware. Set up a github temporary fork. Send me the
hardware. I
got Pomona, I got SPI, I got USB debug, and I got the burning desire to
make this happen.

I like your attitude. See if there's a laptop that looks doable in the
~$500 range, buy two of 'em, and tell me how to reimburse you.

Note: $$$ would come from my own pocket and has nothing to do with my
employer.

David, thank you for that offer.

Happy to help if it gets people focused on more productive things.

Vladimir also hinted in #coreboot, if the hardware would be given to him
he *could* try a port (with no promises of course). He was on vacation,

That doesn't sound very reassuring. Let's let him chime in if/when he wants
to commit to something.

The question is how to best do that, so people
do not get problems with taxes and so on?

I am not a tax attorney or accountant so please don't take what I have to
say into consideration when filing your taxes.

That said, the gift exclusion on taxes in the US is $14,000USD in 2013:
http://www.irs.gov/uac/2013-Inflation-Adjustments-to-Various-Tax-Benefits

I have no idea what it is in Europe, or what it is if transferring money
from the US to EU. Perhaps it's best not to ponder such minutia on a
mailing list.

If at least Alex and Vladimir participate, we'd need two to four
laptops, depending how critical a second model is to have for
development.

Whoa there, this ain't the Oprah Winfrey show.

Note 2: This might be a good place to start:
https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/#/c/188275/

I had my hands on a Asus U38N-C4010H which was very well manufactured in
my opinion and a nice consumer laptop.

http://www.heise.de/preisvergleich/asus-vivobook-u38n-c4010h-90ntia212n12925d151y-a863881.html

In the IRC channel #coreboot also the Lenovo X131e was mentioned. I have
no idea what to make of that AMD E1-1200 processor.

http://www.heise.de/preisvergleich/lenovo-thinkpad-x131e-3372-1a6-a998573.html

Some of those seem quite expensive and/or already dated. It would probably
be cheaper and easier to find something newer, so long as it's likely that
future revisions will use same/similar EC code.
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Re: [coreboot] Expectations, project direction and interest of contributors

On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 10:58 PM, Kyösti Mälkki kyosti.mal...@gmail.comwrote:



   coreboot- Mon Apr 29 15:07:52 PDT 2013 starting...


 That is, it appears the revision information seems to be intentionally
 wiped from the string logged in CBMEM console there.


That's a heck of an assumption. You did not see it in one place, you did
see it in another, so your conclusion is *it was intentionally wiped*? I'm
quite flabbergasted.



 We did recover it from CBFS config -file:

   revision 6ed0cbf6248d5b4311778d8a5d6e4fc674755f55



Yep, so from any reasonable point of view, it was there.

Nothing like a little FUD based on second-hand knowledge to start my
morning.

ron
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Re: [coreboot] A new, modern coreboot long-term support laptop

On Monday, March 24, 2014 10:36:27 PM David Hendricks wrote:
 On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 9:10 PM, mrnuke mr.nuke...@gmail.com wrote:
  Chose the hardware. Set up a github temporary fork. Send me the hardware.
  I got Pomona, I got SPI, I got USB debug, and I got the burning desire to
  make this happen.
 
 I like your attitude. See if there's a laptop that looks doable in the
 ~$500 range, buy two of 'em, and tell me how to reimburse you.
 
I like your attitude too. I've started developing a Candidacy page [1]. I 
won't start fiddling hardware or funds until a consensus is reached as to the 
best option.

There's an interesting trend with these ProBooks. In November, when I got my 
chromebook, there was only one ProBook with AMD CPU available IIRC. Now there 
are a number of such models. That may indicate we can expect those to be on 
the market for a while, or I'm just remembering wrong and those have less than 
a year of shelf life remaining.

Anyone has any experience with the AMD ProBooks? Are they built to last, or 
are they crap?

Alex

[1] http://www.coreboot.org/User_talk:MrNuke/LTS_Candidates


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Re: [coreboot] A new, modern coreboot long-term support laptop

Just one thing. Don't underestimate just how miserable the EC can make your
life. I place a high premium on systems
with an open EC. Just be careful there.

ron
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Re: [coreboot] Changes to the coreboot Project Structure

* ron minnich rminn...@gmail.com [140325 06:34]:
 
 
 
 On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 10:20 PM, Vladimir ' -coder/phcoder' Serbinenko 
 phco...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 
 I don't see how this prevents any of my propositions for the bulk of the
 boards. The problem you describe isn't going away with your proposition.
 We still want to have a top which is supposed to work on all boards.
 
 
 
 All boards? The Arima HDAMA, 12 years old now, not sold for maybe 10? All
 boards? Are you sure?

Keeping old boards in a branch of coreboot that is not moving as fast as
upstream will reduce breakage and stabilize the code base for those
systems.

Stefan


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Re: [coreboot] A new, modern coreboot long-term support laptop

On Tuesday, March 25, 2014 10:53:51 AM ron minnich wrote:
 Just one thing. Don't underestimate just how miserable the EC can make your
 life. I place a high premium on systems
 with an open EC. Just be careful there.
 
Can you tell us more about the Samsung Chromebook 2?

Alex


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Re: [coreboot] Changes to the coreboot Project Structure

On Tuesday, March 25, 2014 06:56:13 PM Stefan Reinauer wrote:
 * ron minnich rminn...@gmail.com [140325 06:34]:
  On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 10:20 PM, Vladimir ' -coder/phcoder' Serbinenko 
  
  phco...@gmail.com wrote:
  I don't see how this prevents any of my propositions for the bulk of
  the boards. The problem you describe isn't going away with your
  proposition. We still want to have a top which is supposed to work on
  all boards.
  
  All boards? The Arima HDAMA, 12 years old now, not sold for maybe 10? All
  boards? Are you sure?
 
 Keeping old boards in a branch of coreboot that is not moving as fast as
 upstream will reduce breakage and stabilize the code base for those
 systems.
 
This model works for linux with really old releases being maintained by 
interested people. It is doable. It is reasonable.

Alex

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Re: [coreboot] A new, modern coreboot long-term support laptop (was: Expectations, project direction and interest of contributors)

* mrnuke mr.nuke...@gmail.com [140325 05:10]:
  * For example, a hardwired boot blob which has been RE'd so that we know 
 what 
 it does and how it does it, would be acceptable (see Allwinner). Even the 
 FSF, 
 according to RMS's own essays considers this to essentially be hardware.
  * A non-ISA (a) firmware blob which controls a piece of hardware which
   i) can only do one thing
   ii) without compromising the security of the system
   iii) and is non-essential for the functioning of the system
 is acceptable. Examples would be USB 3.0 firmware blobs. Examples of blobs 
 which would NOT be are ME (violates all three points), MRC (violates point 
 iii, and potentially ii).

The ME is a non-ISA firmware blob. It's more like EC firmware, a piece
of software running on a completely different processor. It just happens
to share the SPI flash with the main CPU.

USB3 blobs can do more than one thing and violate security, just as any
other blob.

MRC is an ISA blob.

  * An ISA blob which is NOT essential for the bring-up of the system, and can 
 reasonably be replaced by a free alternative. This basically includes VGA 
 BIOSes.

VGA oproms can about as reasonably be replaced as MRC. (within an order of
magnitude or so of effort). Both of them can be considered
non-essential. You can run out of cache just as much as you can run
without video. The differenciation is rather arbitrary.

 [Again, feel free to skip ahead] I made some of the claims Paul is talking 
 about. I have the git hash of the firmware which came with my chromebook, but 
 a branch containing that hash is not available publicly.

Yes it is. Check out the chromium repository. It has a public firmware
branch for each released platform.

 Stefan

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Re: [coreboot] A new, modern coreboot long-term support laptop (was: Expectations, project direction and interest of contributors)

* mrnuke mr.nuke...@gmail.com [140325 08:37]:
   a branch containing that hash is not available publicly.
  
  Baloney. Your not finding it does not mean it's not available. It means you
  didn't look hard enough.
  
 I call baloney on this one. I do not have to look hard enough. Section 3 
 defines how hard I should look. My chromebook came with no corresponding 
 source code, and no written offer for the source code. So no, I don't have to 
 jailbreak the device to get to a root shell, read the flash, dd the BIOS_STUB 
 out of there, and run cbfstool to extract the .config in order to find out 
 I'm 
 running coreboot commit ff1f4757e4bd35a6b72018d0982b5e2bec89a1bb
 
https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos%2Fthird_party%2Fcoreboot

 Did I mention the manufacturer (the one whose name was on the box) explicitly 
 responded to my request for source code with we don't give that away?

I have no idea who you were talking to, or whose name is on that box but
I don't understand why you use your uninformed complaints to point
fingers at the corporate sponsored members of this community.

 Oh yeah, can you tell us anything about the Samsung Chromebook 2?

Yeah, there's a lot of information available here: http://goo.gl/xWZXsO

 Exynos still has that annoyng BL0 blob, does it not? It's either a trade-off 
 or a trade-off. Damn!

Which is why this whole whining around is useless unless it results in
action. 

Stefan

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Re: [coreboot] A new, modern coreboot long-term support laptop (was: Expectations, project direction and interest of contributors)

2014-03-25 Thread Patrick Georgi

Am Dienstag, den 25.03.2014, 19:51 +0100 schrieb Stefan Reinauer:
 * mrnuke mr.nuke...@gmail.com [140325 08:37]:
  out of there, and run cbfstool to extract the .config in order to find out 
  I'm 
  running coreboot commit ff1f4757e4bd35a6b72018d0982b5e2bec89a1bb
  https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos%2Fthird_party%2Fcoreboot
https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/third_party/coreboot/+/ff1f4757e4bd35a6b72018d0982b5e2bec89a1bb
- 404


Patrick


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Re: [coreboot] A new, modern coreboot long-term support laptop

2014-03-25 Thread David Hendricks

On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 10:57 AM, mrnuke mr.nuke...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Tuesday, March 25, 2014 10:53:51 AM ron minnich wrote:
  Just one thing. Don't underestimate just how miserable the EC can make
 your
  life. I place a high premium on systems
  with an open EC. Just be careful there.
 
 Can you tell us more about the Samsung Chromebook 2?


What do you want to know? It's been announced, the specs are out, the
firmware code is out in the open (it ships with u-boot), and we even have
some code upstream for it in coreboot that could be polished up. There's
the usual masked ROM in addition to the 8KB BL0 blob, but everything else
is open including the EC firmware.

It's a nice laptop that is probably already a good candidate for RYF. I'll
leave subjective analysis as an exercise for the reader.

-- 
David Hendricks (dhendrix)
Systems Software Engineer, Google Inc.
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Re: [coreboot] A new, modern coreboot long-term support laptop

On Tuesday, March 25, 2014 07:51:33 PM Stefan Reinauer wrote:
 * mrnuke mr.nuke...@gmail.com [140325 08:37]:
a branch containing that hash is not available publicly.
   
   Baloney. Your not finding it does not mean it's not available. It means
   you didn't look hard enough.
  
  I call baloney on this one. I do not have to look hard enough. Section 3
  defines how hard I should look. My chromebook came with no corresponding
  source code, and no written offer for the source code. So no, I don't have
  to jailbreak the device to get to a root shell, read the flash, dd the
  BIOS_STUB out of there, and run cbfstool to extract the .config in order
  to find out I'm running coreboot commit
  ff1f4757e4bd35a6b72018d0982b5e2bec89a1bb
 
 https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos%2Fthird_party%2Fcoreboot
 
[mrnuke@nukelap sltest]$ git clone 
https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/third_party/coreboot
Cloning into 'coreboot'...
remote: Sending approximately 35.98 MiB ...
remote: Counting objects: 13722, done
remote: Finding sources: 100% (813/813)
remote: Total 154664 (delta 127716), reused 154474 (delta 127716)
Receiving objects: 100% (154664/154664), 34.77 MiB | 1.16 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (128150/128150), done.
Checking connectivity... done.
Checking out files: 100% (10717/10717), done.
[mrnuke@nukelap sltest]$ cd coreboot/
[mrnuke@nukelap coreboot]$ git checkout 
ff1f4757e4bd35a6b72018d0982b5e2bec89a1bb -b found_it
fatal: reference is not a tree: ff1f4757e4bd35a6b72018d0982b5e2bec89a1bb
[mrnuke@nukelap coreboot]$ 

You didn't check the hash, did you?

  Exynos still has that annoyng BL0 blob, does it not? It's either a
  trade-off or a trade-off. Damn!
 
 Which is why this whole whining around is useless unless it results in
 action.
 
There's already been more action in the last few days than in the last few 
years. We've rounded up a first batch of candidates, got interested people 
pledging coding effort, and even a pledge for financial support. We got some 
of the libreboot guys excited about this. As long as we don't slack and lose 
momentum, we're on the right track.

Alex


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Re: [coreboot] A new, modern coreboot long-term support laptop

On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 12:09 PM, mrnuke mr.nuke...@gmail.com wrote:


 There's already been more action in the last few days than in the last few
 years. We've rounded up a first batch of candidates, got interested people
 pledging coding effort, and even a pledge for financial support. We got
 some
 of the libreboot guys excited about this.


The really easy part.


 As long as we don't slack and lose
 momentum, we're on the right track.



The really hard part. Been here before. Come back in a month and let me
know how it's going. I hope well.

In fact I'd recommend you get people to commit to things and then make sure
they get those things done.

ron
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Re: [coreboot] A new, modern coreboot long-term support laptop

On Tuesday, March 25, 2014 12:03:28 PM David Hendricks wrote:
 On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 10:57 AM, mrnuke mr.nuke...@gmail.com wrote:
  On Tuesday, March 25, 2014 10:53:51 AM ron minnich wrote:
   Just one thing. Don't underestimate just how miserable the EC can make
   your life. I place a high premium on systems with an open EC. Just be
   careful there.
  
  Can you tell us more about the Samsung Chromebook 2?
 
 What do you want to know? It's been announced, the specs are out, the
 firmware code is out in the open (it ships with u-boot), and we even have
 some code upstream for it in coreboot that could be polished up. There's
 the usual masked ROM in addition to the 8KB BL0 blob, but everything else
 is open including the EC firmware.
 
I'm assuming BLO is not persistent.

 It's a nice laptop that is probably already a good candidate for RYF. I'll
 leave subjective analysis as an exercise for the reader.

Teardown pictures? Construction quality? Shelf life? Performance numbers?

As far as RYF, it's by far the best candidate with the least amount of work 
involved. Bonus: no proprietary OS and/or IBV taxes. I don't know if Google 
charges OEMs anything for the use of its software, but if it does, that money 
goes to FLOSS, so it's a non-issue.

Alex


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Re: [coreboot] Changes to the coreboot Project Structure

* mrnuke mr.nuke...@gmail.com [140325 19:13]:
 On Tuesday, March 25, 2014 06:56:13 PM Stefan Reinauer wrote:
  * ron minnich rminn...@gmail.com [140325 06:34]:
   On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 10:20 PM, Vladimir ' -coder/phcoder' Serbinenko 
   
   phco...@gmail.com wrote:
   I don't see how this prevents any of my propositions for the bulk of
   the boards. The problem you describe isn't going away with your
   proposition. We still want to have a top which is supposed to work on
   all boards.
   
   All boards? The Arima HDAMA, 12 years old now, not sold for maybe 10? All
   boards? Are you sure?
  
  Keeping old boards in a branch of coreboot that is not moving as fast as
  upstream will reduce breakage and stabilize the code base for those
  systems.
  
 This model works for linux with really old releases being maintained by 
 interested people. It is doable. It is reasonable.

Yes, absolutely. These old releases live in extra branches. Same thing
we need to do.

Stefan
 

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Re: [coreboot] A new, modern coreboot long-term support laptop

2014-03-25 Thread David Hendricks

On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 12:17 PM, mrnuke mr.nuke...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Tuesday, March 25, 2014 12:03:28 PM David Hendricks wrote:
  On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 10:57 AM, mrnuke mr.nuke...@gmail.com wrote:
   On Tuesday, March 25, 2014 10:53:51 AM ron minnich wrote:
Just one thing. Don't underestimate just how miserable the EC can
 make
your life. I place a high premium on systems with an open EC. Just be
careful there.
  
   Can you tell us more about the Samsung Chromebook 2?
 
  What do you want to know? It's been announced, the specs are out, the
  firmware code is out in the open (it ships with u-boot), and we even have
  some code upstream for it in coreboot that could be polished up. There's
  the usual masked ROM in addition to the 8KB BL0 blob, but everything else
  is open including the EC firmware.
 
 I'm assuming BLO is not persistent.


It's been a while since I've looked closely at it, but I think it does
remain persistent in the resume path.


  It's a nice laptop that is probably already a good candidate for RYF.
 I'll
  leave subjective analysis as an exercise for the reader.

 Teardown pictures?


That ought to show up on chromium.org in the near future. I'm sure other
sites will have teardown pics as well once the device makes it out to more
reviewers and is available for sale.


 Construction quality?


Subjective. IMO it's nice.


 Shelf life?


Subjective according to the vendor. The original Samsung Chromebook is
still readily available after over a year and a half, but it's also been a
bestseller for an incredibly long time. If the newer model is successful I
suspect it will remain on shelves for a while too.


 Performance numbers?


Subjective, depending on what you want to do. Third-party websites ought to
have plenty of benchmarks you can refer to.


 As far as RYF, it's by far the best candidate with the least amount of work
 involved.


From a firmware perspective, I think that's a fair statement. It only
matters though if folks are comfortable with the limitations of where the
ARM world seems is with regard to booting different OSes and kernels. For
that reason I was kind of hoping for an x86 platform (likely AMD based)
since I think most folks will find it easiest to boot their favorite distro
or non-Linux OS. But either way is cool.

-- 
David Hendricks (dhendrix)
Systems Software Engineer, Google Inc.
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Re: [coreboot] A new, modern coreboot long-term support laptop

On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 1:26 PM, David Hendricks dhend...@google.comwrote:

 On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 12:17 PM, mrnuke mr.nuke...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Tuesday, March 25, 2014 12:03:28 PM David Hendricks wrote:
  On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 10:57 AM, mrnuke mr.nuke...@gmail.com wrote:

 I'm assuming BLO is not persistent.


 It's been a while since I've looked closely at it, but I think it does
 remain persistent in the resume path.


I think you're right.




 Construction quality?


 Subjective. IMO it's nice.


It's wonderful IMHO.

I understand the ARM limitations but the EC on those AMD platforms bothers
me.

ron
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Re: [coreboot] A new, modern coreboot long-term support laptop