FreeBSD friendly Motherboard compatible with Coreboot

rootbert said:
not really ... still unemployed hehe ? so I need some time to pull the trigger - but I will watch this thread and post if I find out
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I see you are in Vienna, you could do some search at Wrocław (PL), there is the place for IT jobs in Poland and they are always looking for people. Every year dozens of people from my country (Brazil) are contracted by corporations in there; however the vastly majority don't finish the year due to beign unable to adapt to the weather. o_O
 
rigoletto@ said:
Or if you are really looking for something trully open sourced you could get a Raptorcs POWER9 bundle and enjoy.
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Only if I was much younger, I'd go for it, right now. And then, I'd ask my friend who owns small fabrication and machine shop to build a nice custom 1U- like enclosure for me. I'd do the rest - PSU, fans, wiring, storage devices ... etc.

I have Lenovo's Think Server RS140, that I host my friend's (from Anotherland) OS and the rest inside it. The server has crappy CPU and 16GB of RAM. So I might be tempted to clear the inside and see if I can stick that Raptor guts in the RS140's enclosure with the original PSU. I just like the thin and slim 1U enclosure of the RS140's, for some reason. I'm an old nerd, so I also like my vintage gear, even my 1.5 SATA-3.5 inch spinners that still work and serve me well as a backup storage media. But, if my friend agrees to split the cost of buying the Raptor's guts and if the original PSU in RS140's case can be (somehow) re-used than I would get the rest to for the FreeBSD test.

Yo'll have to stop agitating me with the links to those cewl gadgets ?

"if the original PSU in RS140's case can be (somehow) re-used" bad idea - it won't work :(
 
toorski said:

Only if I was much younger, I'd go for it, right now. And then, I'd ask my friend who owns small fabrication and machine shop to build a nice custom 1U- like enclosure for me. I'd do the rest - PSU, fans, wiring, storage devices ... etc.

I have Lenovo's Think Server RS140, that I host my friend's (from Anotherland) OS and the rest inside it. The server has crappy CPU and 16GB of RAM. So I might be tempted to clear the inside and see if I can stick that Raptor guts in the RS140's enclosure with the original PSU. I just like the thin and slim 1U enclosure of the RS140's, for some reason. I'm an old nerd, so I also like my vintage gear, even my 1.5 SATA-3.5 inch spinners that still work and serve me well as a backup storage media. But, if my friend agrees to split the cost of buying the Raptor's guts and if the original PSU in RS140's case can be (somehow) re-used than I would get the rest to for the FreeBSD test.

Yo'll have to stop agitating me with the links to those cewl gadgets ?
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Why so big? There is the Blackbird too[1]. ?

I would really like to fit everything (including some drawer) in a 12-16U rack and keep it at the side of my desk, but there is the noise to be dealt. I would probably need to make everything water-cooled (which is nice but costly, specially for servers) . :rolleyes:

Now, a funny thing. ARMv8 is in better state than POWER8/9 (we need to switch to little endian to really improve the things, but first we need to make it build with LLVM instead of that super old GCC - both involve a lot of work) but we have more ports building sucessifully on POWER9 than on ARMv8.

[1] I was advised the Blackbird installation should be done very carefully because this is very easy to damage some pins, including some at the back of the board.
 
rigoletto@ said:
Why so big? There is the Blackbird too[1]. ?
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One can go small too, I guess, for a big price. And, this is just the beginning. My shopping cart, including SAS controller. Because, I have to test my SAS Super/HD somehow :)
 

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toorski said:
What kind of a Redneck setup is this? :what:

Dual 92mm fan CPU - RCS Wiki

wiki.raptorcs.com wiki.raptorcs.com
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Some dirty decisions were made on that building. ?

toorski said:
One can go small too, I guess, for a big price. And, this is just the beginning. My shopping cart, including SAS controller. Because, I have to test my SAS Super/HD somehow :)
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Oh, you are getting the 8 cores processor model, that will give you 32 threads. :D

I would get an aftermarket Noctua heatsink. IIRC POWER9 are compatible with LGA2011.

Also, have a look if starting with one of the available bundles don't get the things cheaper at the end.
 
altern said:
using flashrom if you type:
-L | --list-supported print supported devices

it says:
Supported flash chips (total: 391):

can you check output and tell which are the best boards?

Thanks
Click to expand...

I see you asking this on the mailing list too.
Just because flashrom will flash to these devices does not mean coreboot will work on them.
flashrom can be used to flash a stock firmware to a motherboard.
This is useful for opensource operating systems where most motherboard manufacturers only supply a Windows compatible flasher.

Just for kicks I checked flashrom source code and /usr/ports/sysutils/flashrom/work/flashrom-1.0/print.c contains the list you are asking about, but it is not a coreboot support list, only a flashrom support list.
 
altern said:
there is:
F2A85-M
F2A85-M LE

but these are AMD, do you the equivalent for INTEL?
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Why are you considering only Intel boards? coreboot supports plenty of AMD boards which don't contain ME/PSP and don't suffer from Meltdown + some other Intel-only vulnerabilities, for which the performance-crippling patches are required.
IMHO, AMD seems to be a wiser choice for a coreboot board, unless you already have some Intel-supported board (so no additional expenses for getting one)

Best regards,
Mike, a coreboot'er
 
Hey,

refreshing this thread a bit..
any new tested motherboards or new motherboards?

might need some help..
any member can provide some refurbished hardware for free?
what are the best vendors for new and refurbished?
possible to get discount or cheap,low-cost from some member or service?

Thanks
 
Are you very persistent? I bought a Chromebox that needs coreboot flashed to it.
Right now it has custom digital signage app embedded.
I don't have time to learn coreboot and SeaBIOS.
That might be a cheap learning experience for you. Take a 30 dollar chromebox and install coreboot.

MrChromebox.tech

MrChromebox.tech : Custom coreboot firmware and firmware utilities for your Chromebook/Chromebox
mrchromebox.tech

I really think you need good flashing 'sense' when it come to coreboot. It is not for inexperienced bios flashers.

MrChromebox.tech

MrChromebox.tech : Custom coreboot firmware and firmware utilities for your Chromebook/Chromebox
mrchromebox.tech
Have you ever bricked a motherboard. Hot swapped a BIOS chip?
Tweakers are willing to take a risk blowing money for their hobby. Are you?
The tools needed are even Linux based. Gasp.

GalliumOS – A fast and lightweight Linux distro for ChromeOS devices

galliumos.org galliumos.org
 
My PC Engines APU2 recommendation was spot on. SeaBIOS with support.
For $100 you get a work platform with exposed SPI just in case you flashing goes sideways.

Unfortunatly APU2/3/4 got supply issues and dried up. No more cheap boxes.
I would give you one of mine but they are now rare. Its not a desktop rig either.

Chromebox would be my suggestion today.
That or old IBM Notebook known to work.
 
altern
Can I ask what is it that draws you to Coreboot? Is it the open source?

It takes a certain sickness to take working hardware and attempt to modify it for philosophical reasons.
Just my read on it as a hardware guy. I like the principal but it has its place.
I too have a hardware sickness. I buy computers and try and make them run FreeBSD.
So I understand it.
But you have to recognize the challenge you are trying tackle and know the subject matter well or it will cost you dearly.
 
Since you are obviously on a tight budget why not consider learning U-Boot on Arm.
Many Armv7 boards are still viable and cheap.

I must say Uboot is also an open source BIOS replacement and a great tool for learning boot procedures.

It is very hard to brick a device using uboot. If you mess up just rebuild your microSD card.
 
I'm not altern, but I'll answer anyway. I'm interested in Coreboot because I don't think the lock the "Independent" BIOS Vendors have on PC firmware is healthy. Some things I've read recently that confirm my dislike:

Also, wouldn't it be nice to be able to upgrade your BIOS from Freebsd?
 
Phishfry said:
It is very hard to brick a device using uboot. If you mess up just rebuild your microSD card.
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It is not impossible ?
Bricking ARM device is usually writing wrong u-boot to some bootable memory media (microSD, eMMC, SPI flash).
I manage to write u-boot to my RK3399 board to eMMC instead to microSD (eMMC has greater boot priority). Unbricking was little disassembly and connecting one wire from GND to tiny tiny resistor near eMMC flash while powering it up.
Buy UART adapter before any experimentation, it cost a few bucks but it will of great help.

ThinkPads (T430/X230 are the last supported models IIRC) but not sure about price.
Bricking CoreBoot means unbootable PC, but easy (after some practice) fixable with reflashing SPI flash (where BIOS is stored) with external programmer (few dollars, you can make your own from STM32 $2 board). And that SPI flash is not that accessible - laptop disassembly was needed in my case.

Personally, playing with u-boot was much more fun than playing with CoreBoot.
 
If I were looking for a board like that, I'd probably phrase the question a bit differently: Are there Coreboot-compatible boards that are known to be NOT compatible with FreeBSD? Most of the stuff listed at https://coreboot.org/status/board-status.html, it looks like it'll play with FreeBSD just fine. Also, FreeBSD doesn't care about the BIOS anyway, it will use just about anything with impunity to boot.

Some VPS vendors do allow access into a bios via a special software-based console that runs on Windows... I'm not aware of an Open Source equivalent, though.
 
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