Coreboot Lands Updated ME_Cleaner, Purism TPM & Other Updates

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Coreboot Lands Updated ME_Cleaner, Purism TPM & Other Updates

A number of improvements to Coreboot were merged to Git master overnight...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Coreboot-Early-April-Action

[willmore]

I now have one machine in the house running coreboot. I got a very cheap chromebook and part of the procedure to de-chrome it and install linux was to flash the BIOS with coreboot. Seems it has better support of the hardware than the chrome BIOS did.

Intel says the platform supports only 8GB of memory, but coreboot gladly detected the 12GB in the machine.

Now, I have a very inexpensive and pretty rugged Linux box. Thanks, coreboot! I need to remember to send some cash their way.

[M@yeulC]

Talking about TPM, does someone know, if it can be made to store LUKS/dm-crypt keys?

[RavFX]

M@yeuIC, you dont store luks key in the tpm. You derivate your key from the tpm registers plus another key file and maybe a gpg layer layer for the password.

[azdaha]

Hell yes!

I'm ecstatic to learn that the W520 Thinkpad is supported with coreboot. I've had this work-horse for a relatively long time; works great, still. I'm ready to put it to use now with coreboot.

[azdaha]

I now have one machine in the house running coreboot. I got a very cheap chromebook and part of the procedure to de-chrome it and install linux was to flash the BIOS with coreboot. Seems it has better support of the hardware than the chrome BIOS did.

Intel says the platform supports only 8GB of memory, but coreboot gladly detected the 12GB in the machine.

Now, I have a very inexpensive and pretty rugged Linux box. Thanks, coreboot! I need to remember to send some cash their way.

Thanks so much for posting this. I had forgotten about that. I have an old Chromebook as well, which is out of commission due to cracked screen. I shall use that to start working with coreboot before moving on to the ThinkPad W520.

[unixfan2001]

I now have one machine in the house running coreboot. I got a very cheap chromebook and part of the procedure to de-chrome it and install linux was to flash the BIOS with coreboot. Seems it has better support of the hardware than the chrome BIOS did.

Intel says the platform supports only 8GB of memory, but coreboot gladly detected the 12GB in the machine.

Now, I have a very inexpensive and pretty rugged Linux box. Thanks, coreboot! I need to remember to send some cash their way.

Curious.

Which "cheap Chromebook" has 12GB of RAM?

[azdaha]

Curious.

Which "cheap Chromebook" has 12GB of RAM?

I assumed that was added

[willmore]

Curious.

Which "cheap Chromebook" has 12GB of RAM?

As azdaha says, it was added. It's a Lenovo X131e that came with 4GB. I replaced the memory and the wireless as part of the conversion.

As a chromebook, it would only see 8GB of the 12GB which is what Intel claims for the CPU itself. So, that was clearly a software limitation in place rather than a true hardware limitation. So, I'm not sure if you could get a 'chromebook' with 12GB based off of this platform. There were other firmware modification options that kept support for the chromebook. It's possible that some of them would remove the DRAM size limitation. I did not explore those options as I had no interest in keeping the chromebook functionality around.

[pirx]

I now have one machine in the house running coreboot. I got a very cheap chromebook and part of the procedure to de-chrome it and install linux was to flash the BIOS with coreboot. Seems it has better support of the hardware than the chrome BIOS did.

Intel says the platform supports only 8GB of memory, but coreboot gladly detected the 12GB in the machine.

Now, I have a very inexpensive and pretty rugged Linux box. Thanks, coreboot! I need to remember to send some cash their way.

How is performance compared to default firmware? Any regressions?