Gregory's Server
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People kept bugging me about this on IRC. So I listened and implemented a solution. https://libreboot.org/news/gm45microcode.html This may be useful for some people. Enjoy! Libreboot 20230413 released! Lots of fixes in the build system, utilities, general polishing - this is a bugfix release, relative to the previous Libreboot 20230319 release, with no board changes. You can read the announcement, here: https://libreboot.org/news/libreboot20230413.html I was going to do this next week, but I decided to do this today. I have a bunch more boards that I plan to add for the next release. @libreleah  No hurry at all, but I'm just curious if there's been any work done on that weird VGA color issues when using FreeBSD (installer and initial screen on each boot). It doesn't even bother me anymore since I switched to a graphical boot screen, but it'd be nice to have fixed at some point. Again, no hurry. I know you're really busy these days. ^___^ FYI I've received a *huge* influx of Libreboot laptop orders on Minifree, due to Minifree's recent presence on both the Hacker News and Slashdot homepages. I'm processing all of the orders and assigning machines to all of them. You will all be contacted with status update soon. I have an army of ThinkPads destined for a date with UPS (and Fedex, for USA/Canada customers - UPS for Europe, on most orders).  @libreleah congrats on the migration! I've been really enjoying Codeberg for my personal projects. Would love to see more people join. Btw today is Trans Day Of Visibility. I'm late as usual, I'm always working on stuff so I forgot! But it's still TDOV and this post counts! I literally sat on my computer all day in Vim, writing code on some asinine build system written in bash. I'm a nonbinary trans person who likes computers and rants on IRC all day. I don't experience the same of discrimination some trans folk do; I recognise my privilege that I'm employed by my own company, have good friends/family, a good life. I'm lucky. I hope one day we live in a world where trans people are accepted everywhere. Where when a trans person does something great, people focus on that, on the merits of the person, rather than being "weird" that they're trans. Because we're normal people. For example: When one of us becomes the first trans prime minister or president of a country, I want you to focus on their merit as a politician. Not obsess that they're trans. That's my brand. It's how I want to be treated. On my merits alone. I've temporarily reduced the prices again, for laptops sold via https://minifree.org/ I recently acquired a large batch of both X230 and T440p, slightly cheaper than I usually get them, so I've passed that saving to customers. These are secure machines, with Libreboot (based on coreboot) which replaces proprietary BIOS/UEFI firmware. Your choice of Linux distro, OpenBSD or FreeBSD - if no request is made, I default to providing Debian Linux. Full disk encryption by default, for all orders. Did a T500 quad-core mod today, for a customer. The customer had purchased a quad-modded T500 from a random eBay person, but it wasn't booting properly, so it got sent to me for repair. I didn't take photos, but when I took the board out, I could see that the solder was really bad (cold joints). I re-did the whole mod, and it boots up again. I really enjoy doing these mods. I also upgraded this machine's internal SPI flash to 16MB Winbond W25Q128FVSIG, rather than the built-in 8MB Macronix IC. I've reduced the cost of the 960GB SSD upgrade, for laptops sold via https://minifree.org/ These laptops come with Libreboot and Debian Linux pre-installed - or if you request it, another distro or a BSD (e.g. OpenBSD/FreeBSD) will be installed. These are secure machines, with full disk encryption by default. Libreboot replaces proprietary BIOS/UEFI firmware. 5 year warranty and free technical support for all orders. Sales fund the Libreboot project, which I'm founder and lead developer of.  @libreleah I'm really waiting for code forges to federate. Sucks to create accounts on five different code forges just to create issues or maybe create minor pull requests. I really have to thank @Codeberg for actually pushing ahead with code forge federation by forking Gitea into Forgejo. @libreleah So many people get hostile about it, but software liberty is also the freedom to use any software you want, proprietary or otherwise. Being hostile towards people who use anything but Libre software is a good way to make sure less people use Libre software. @libreleah Good on you for helping people out instead of attacking them. That's what we need more of in the free software movement.
Today I learned: some ThinkPad X220 Tablet machines have WSON8 flash ICs. This X220T now has a Winbond W25Q128FVSIG installed. X220 vs X230 is an interesting case, because they both support these configurations: 8, 8+4 or 16, with 8+4 meaning that the 2nd IC footprint is used (unpopulated in these pics). In single-IC configuration (8MB) as seen on X220/X220T, upgrading to 16MB is much easier. I'm about to test a 16MB libreboot ROM on this. If it works, fantastic! (this is my personal X220T) Fun fact, today is the 9 year anniversary of the Libreboot project. The very first Libreboot release was version 20131212, release on 12 December 2013. However, this canon exists retroactively; the project was nameless until early 2014 when the name Libreboot was coined. The first release, retroactively named Libreboot 20131212, was released on 12 December 2013, 9 years ago today. I don't have a precise date for when the name Libreboot was coined, but it was February 2014 by my reckoning. i still got it did an x200 for someone recently. upgraded the 8MB macronix flash chip, replacing it with 16MB Winbond W25Q128FVSIG like the good old days libreboot release soon. i'm working on a few bugs and tidying up the documentation. |
@rikuv also look more closely at that patch
in upstream coreboot docs, it says grub hangs on those hp laptops (grub coreboot payload)
riku fixed it, by adding a 200ms timeout in grub's ps/2 init. see:
https://browse.libreboot.org/lbmk.git/diff/resources/grub/patches/0005-at-keyboard-timeout.patch?id=5657c7d05b0b15dd01866999c9c868f8725b19a0
i advised riku to submit this upstream to the gnu project and/or coreboot (on coreboot side, if not merged in grub upstream, hotpatch at build time)
libreboot has that patch now applied automatically when building grub
it might benefit other machines too (timeout code)
@rikuv also look more closely at that patch
in upstream coreboot docs, it says grub hangs on those hp laptops (grub coreboot payload)
riku fixed it, by adding a 200ms timeout in grub's ps/2 init. see:
https://browse.libreboot.org/lbmk.git/diff/resources/grub/patches/0005-at-keyboard-timeout.patch?id=5657c7d05b0b15dd01866999c9c868f8725b19a0