Coreboot 4.8 Released With 17 New Motherboards Supported

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Coreboot 4.8 Released With 17 New Motherboards Supported

While many Coreboot users just habitually ride the latest Git code, for those sticking to official stable releases, Coreboot 4.8 was released today...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Coreboot-4.8-Released

[Adarion]

> 17 new supported motherboards/mainboards, 39 were dropped

Awww! One step forward, 2 steps back.
And according to the list those 39 aren't all evaluation/dev. boards where only 128 items exist world-wide. Especially older HW should be supported once it is proven to work reliably. Moreover, older HW is often cheap to get hold of (used) and then suitable for experimenting. (e.g. there were offers for 10 used Wyse Sxx ThinClients for 5 Euros or something plus shipment. Even if the chips are soldered, one could do a few initial steps without risking to brick 100+ Euros/Dollars of money.)

[Tomin]

> 17 new supported motherboards/mainboards, 39 were dropped

Awww! One step forward, 2 steps back.
And according to the list those 39 aren't all evaluation/dev. boards where only 128 items exist world-wide. Especially older HW should be supported once it is proven to work reliably. Moreover, older HW is often cheap to get hold of (used) and then suitable for experimenting. (e.g. there were offers for 10 used Wyse Sxx ThinClients for 5 Euros or something plus shipment. Even if the chips are soldered, one could do a few initial steps without risking to brick 100+ Euros/Dollars of money.)

Feel free to maintain and test the code on those boards.

Seriously though, some of those were really old. I've got one of those dropped Gigabyte Slot-1 (so slowish PIII at best) motherboards and I have tried coreboot on it. I remember that it worked well enough to boot Linux. I probably still could grab a version of coreboot that works on it (VCS FTW). Coreboot's website has these lists of latests known working version so I would probably have to do it anyway.

I'm not a coreboot developer.

[johanb]

> 17 new supported motherboards/mainboards, 39 were dropped

Awww! One step forward, 2 steps back.
And according to the list those 39 aren't all evaluation/dev. boards where only 128 items exist world-wide. Especially older HW should be supported once it is proven to work reliably. Moreover, older HW is often cheap to get hold of (used) and then suitable for experimenting. (e.g. there were offers for 10 used Wyse Sxx ThinClients for 5 Euros or something plus shipment. Even if the chips are soldered, one could do a few initial steps without risking to brick 100+ Euros/Dollars of money.)

Well, noone had verified that they worked for a long time as stated in the release notes.

Several old devices were removed from the master branch, as they hinder development and nobody stepped up doing the porting effort and willing to test coreboot on them. If there is the desire to get a board back, it’s not lost as it’s still in the git history.

[pgeorgi]

> Especially older HW should be supported once it is proven to work reliably.

We don't know that these boards still work reliably. With many of these removed boards we have a good educated guess that they won't work and no one testing to show otherwise. Keeping them in the tree would do a disservice to people interested in picking up old hardware with the expectation that coreboot works on it.

If you (or anybody) get hold of such hardware, bringing it up on the last tree before removal and then porting it forward to the current source tree is a welcome contribution.

[starshipeleven]

Especially older HW should be supported once it is proven to work reliably.

They aren't purged from the repo history, anyone wanting to build a coreboot for such boards will be able to compile them with a Coreboot version that could theoretically work.

Moreover, older HW is often cheap to get hold of (used) and then suitable for experimenting. (e.g. there were offers for 10 used Wyse Sxx ThinClients for 5 Euros or something plus shipment. Even if the chips are soldered, one could do a few initial steps without risking to brick 100+ Euros/Dollars of money.)

Hardware flasher tools and SMD rework stations are your best friend.

[michaelb1]

Hardware flasher tools and SMD rework stations are your best friend.

There are also SOIC8 and SOIC16 and other test clips are available - to attach a programmer directly to a chip without desoldering it, and do the In-System Programming. Great solution for those who aren't skilled enough at soldering

[starshipeleven]

There are also SOIC8 and SOIC16 and other test clips are available - to attach a programmer directly to a chip without desoldering it, and do the In-System Programming. Great solution for those who aren't skilled enough at soldering

In my experience, in-system-programming often does not work on PC and laptop boards, it's very common to find some bullshit interfering.

soldering or desoldering a SOIC8/16 chip with a hot air rework station isn't terribly hard, and for non-professional usage you will be fine with random crappy chinese smd rework guns (no separate station, it's all in the gun) you can get for 30$ on ebay, or the hot air stations + soldering iron bundles for 50$.

Just learn how to use it on a scrap board a few times because you will not do it right 100% the first time.