Libreboot 20231021 Brings Some Additional Laptops, Desktops / Motherboards For Testing

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Libreboot 20231021 Brings Some Additional Laptops, Desktops / Motherboards For Testing

Libreboot 20231021 was published for testing today as the newest Coreboot downstream focused on providing only fully free software support for system firmware with more stringent open-source requirements than Coreboot itself...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Libreboot-20231021

[drastic]

LibreBoot has advanced quite a lot. I'm glad to see all the improvements.

Some quite capable laptops and desktops are supported.

I cerainly wouldnt call an Ivy Brigdge CPU "terribly slow". It is about half the speed of current best-selling laptops. It should run all the common daily tasks just fine. The integrated HD 4000 graphics can run Civilization IV at over 30 FPS. HD 4000 GPU is about the same speed as GeForce GT 520, also similar to Radeon X800 XT.

An Intel Core 2 Quad CPU would be another 10% slower than a mobile IvyBridge CPU. But, when you add a modern GPU, you can run many modern AAA games.

Laptops:
- HP EliteBook 8470p (Intel Ivy Bridge, integrated GPU: HD 4000)
- Dell Latitude E6430 (Intel Ivy Bridge, integrated GPU: HD 4000)
(many more laptops supported)

Motherboards:
- Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2L (Core 2 Quad, LGA 775)
- Acer G43T-AM3 (Core 2 Quad, LGA 775)

[drastic]

For example, if you compare the supported model:
HP EliteBook Folio 9470m (Ivy Bridge, 17 Watts, HD 4000 GPU)

Compare to a modern mobile CPU: Ryzen 3 5125C (15 Watts); CPU is less than double the speed of IvyBridge (and exactly the same number of cores), and the integrated GPU is about 3 times faster on Ryzen.

Compare to a modern mobile CPU: Ryzen 3 5425U (15 Watts); CPU is about 2.3 times faster than IvyBridge in single-threaded tasks, and the integrated GPU is about 4 times faster on Ryzen.

[anarki2]

B450 support when?

[drastic]

B450 support when?

Probably when AMD releases the neccessary documentation. I think there is an AMD representative on this forum, so you should ask him directly.

"When will AMD release the documentation required to implement support for B450 chipset in LibreBoot?"

[nickbailuc]

I've been daily driving a 14 year old ThinkPad T500
Originally its a dual core "Intel Core 2", but with libreboot you can do some hardware mods and put a quad core, so I've been using the quad core "Intel core 2 Xtreme QX9300" (best CPU that laptop can run with mods).

Works perfecrly fine for most regular uses trust me (rendering a video or something takes a while but normal programs run fine). The actual problem with it is the weak built-in Intel GPU from 2008, thats the bottleneck.

That mobo supports up to 8GB ram, and has an Expresscard slot so you can put USB 3 on it.

[drastic]

I've been daily driving a 14 year old ThinkPad T500
<snipped>
Works perfecrly fine for most regular uses trust me (rendering a video or something takes a while but normal programs run fine). The actual problem with it is the weak built-in Intel GPU from 2008, thats the bottleneck.

I'm quite interested if you can provide numbers from the Heaven 4.0 benchmark, for comparison to an Ivy Bridge. It's really easy to run it. Heaven 4.0 (native Linux binary) measures pure GPU speed; you can download it from here:
### https://benchmark.unigine.com/heaven

The HD 4000 (Ivy Bridge ULV) scores as following:
2.9 FPS on preset "Extreme" in Linux, 3.0 FPS in DirectX 11 on preset "Extreme"
11.0 FPS on preset "Basic" in Linux, 11.6 FPS in DirectX 11 on preset "Basic"

You can run Heaven 4.0 via the included launcher, or you can use the command-line and bypass the launcher. The command-line instructions are here:
### https://www.phoronix.com/forums/foru...-4-0-benchmark

(When Heaven 4.0 starts, press F9 to start the benchmarking procedure, or click on the "Benchmark" button. When the results are displayed, press F12 to take a screenshot which will be saved to ~/Heaven/screenshots directory)

[nickbailuc]

I'm quite interested if you can provide numbers from the Heaven 4.0 benchmark, for comparison to an Ivy Bridge. It's really easy to run it. Heaven 4.0 (native Linux binary) measures pure GPU speed; you can download it from here:
### https://benchmark.unigine.com/heaven

The HD 4000 (Ivy Bridge ULV) scores as following:
2.9 FPS on preset "Extreme" in Linux, 3.0 FPS in DirectX 11 on preset "Extreme"
11.0 FPS on preset "Basic" in Linux, 11.6 FPS in DirectX 11 on preset "Basic"

You can run Heaven 4.0 via the included launcher, or you can use the command-line and bypass the launcher. The command-line instructions are here:
### https://www.phoronix.com/forums/foru...-4-0-benchmark

(When Heaven 4.0 starts, press F9 to start the benchmarking procedure, or click on the "Benchmark" button. When the results are displayed, press F12 to take a screenshot which will be saved to ~/Heaven/screenshots directory)

I've used heaven before, but not on this thinkpad. I know for sure even on lowest itll be under 10fps not that useful.
The GPU is perfectly good for desktop environemnts (I run Debian with KDE, used to run GNOME both run just fine)

I play a lot of old games on it tho, Quake 1, 2, Half-Life (Xash3D engine), Unreal Tournament
And some more basic ones like Doom 1,2, Duke Nukem 3D, Sonic 1,2,CD (RSDK decompilation) and stuff

2 weeks ago I got a M1 MacBook running Asahi Linux (fucking amazing) cuz I like ARM (I had a Pinebook Pro before that)
I want something more portable, that thinkpad is a brick lol

I actually fired up the thinkpad today, preparing to do a hardened Debian stable install with LUKS2. Itll be my proof-of-concept "secure Linux laptop" (OpenBSD isnt really usable as a home computer for me, imo Debian stable is the next best thing)

If you really wanna know Heaven bench results lmk which options to choose I'll run it graphically (not using phoronix test suite)
probably native res, lowest settings, AA off, vsync off

[caligula]

For example, if you compare the supported model:
HP EliteBook Folio 9470m (Ivy Bridge, 17 Watts, HD 4000 GPU)

Compare to a modern mobile CPU: Ryzen 3 5125C (15 Watts); CPU is less than double the speed of IvyBridge (and exactly the same number of cores), and the integrated GPU is about 3 times faster on Ryzen.

Compare to a modern mobile CPU: Ryzen 3 5425U (15 Watts); CPU is about 2.3 times faster than IvyBridge in single-threaded tasks, and the integrated GPU is about 4 times faster on Ryzen.

Maybe compare with something like

https://www.newegg.com/silver-hp-14-em0000-14-em0066no/p/N82E16834841338?Item=N82E16834841338

https://www.newegg.com/p/1TS-000D-1DW97?Item=9SIABMTK1B0597

Those are $372 .. $464 systems. 5700U has 8 times the CPU performance of the old i5-3427U. The encryption speed is also 10x as fast. Huge difference. It's not fair to compare Core i5 with Ryzen 3. Ryzen 3 5125C has already been phased out by many stores.

[drastic]

If you really wanna know Heaven bench results lmk which options to choose I'll run it graphically (not using phoronix test suite)
probably native res, lowest settings, AA off, vsync off

Heaven will run correctly even if it gets less than 1.0 FPS, but I estimate that it won't be pleasant to look at. Remember to use the F9 (start benchmarking) and F12 (screenshot) keys, it will be much easier because the mouse will move at a few FPS.
- In the Heaven launcher, choose "Preset: Basic". To make it run in a window, select back to "Preset:Custom" and deselect the "fullscreen" box (It will run in a 1280x720 window).
- In the Heaven launcher, choose "Preset: Extreme". To make it run in a window, select back to "Preset:Custom" and deselect the "fullscreen" box (It run in a 1600x900 window).

Or, command line for preset "Extreme":

./heaven_x64 -project_name "Heaven" -data_path "../" -engine_config "../data/heaven_4.0.cfg" -system_script "heaven/unigine.cpp" -sound_app null -video_app opengl -video_multisample 3 -video_fullscreen 0 -video_mode 5 -video_vsync 0 -extern_define ",RELEASE,LANGUAGE_EN,QUALITY_ULTRA,TESSELLATION_EXTREME" ​

Or, command line for preset "Basic":

./heaven_x64 -project_name "Heaven" -data_path "../" -engine_config "../data/heaven_4.0.cfg" -system_script "heaven/unigine.cpp" -sound_app null -video_app opengl -video_multisample 1 -video_fullscreen 0 -video_mode 3 -video_vsync 0 -extern_define ",RELEASE,LANGUAGE_EN,QUALITY_MEDIUM,TESSELLATION_DISABLED"