eoma68, 2021 update
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"Long story short, Mike’s successfully done a production run of 100 EOMA68 A20 Cards, and sent two of them to me in the UK and five to Chris of ThinkPenguin, for testing.
Here’s the longer version. After Mike’s manager quit with zero notice taking all of the manufacturing knowledge in his head with him; after the replacement manager was unable to create working cards using the PCBs that turned out to be sub-standard; after Mike decided to pay out of his own pocket for newer, more expensive, higher quality PCBs; after moving the entire PCB assembly factory equipment to a larger warehouse a couple of months ago… after all that, we decided to do a short run of 100 Cards."
Thoughts?
Is it just me or are there more efforts today toward freedom-respecting hardware than there has been in a long time?
The idea of having a laptop with replaceable parts reminds me of TERES I:
https://www.olimex.com/Products/DIY-Laptop/KITS/TERES-A64-BLACK/open-source-hardware
It seems usable, although not perfect
I'm glad to see they're making some progress. I wanted to order one last year but wanted to focus on projects that had a better chance of actually delivering me the product on schedule. Still plan on getting one though.
I am a translator!
I am not familar with eoma68, the expected benefits and what it brings as compared with TERES I for instance. Does anyone have a good reference, or basic explanations? Thanks !
From the link[1] posted by muhammed:
> [...] Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton has spent nearly
> a decade working on a project to create a PC-on-a-card
> standard that would allow you to upgrade the guts of
> a laptop, desktop, or other PC simply by removing
> and replacing a credit card-sized EOMA68 Computer Card.
So eoma68 is basically a SoC that aims to be suitable for building an easily-upgradable laptop.
Teres I, on the other hand, is an actual laptop. One that comes in parts and is to be assembled by the user. Teres I parts can also be purchased separately, thus it is possible to replace a broken piece in the laptop. Upgradability would be also theoretically possible here - provided that Olimex releases a more powerful but compatible motherboard in the future. Design files of Teres I are available (under GPL IIRC), so even another hardware manufacturer could theoretically step in and make a compatible part for the laptop.
Both boards should boot with free software.
IMHO main drawbacks of Teres I are that it has no ethernet port and uses nonfree wifi. The main, drawbacks of eoma68 are price and the fact that eoma68-based laptop is not yet there. Whether it will have ethernet or wifi - idk.
On a parallel universe, MNT Reform is now shipping:
https://www.crowdsupply.com/mnt/reform/updates/march-2021-production-and-shipping
There has been no update since December 2019 about the last remaining firmware blob, as per:
https://mntre.com/media/reform_md/2019-05-20-reintroducing-reform.html#news
"We are doing experiments to find out if the values can be found once per board and shipped with each PCB so that you wouldn't have to run this firmware yourself. As of December 2019, this is a theoretical approach."
I decided to just ask about it. Here's Lukas' response:
###################
Hi Wojtek,
yes, there is a binary ARCompact program loaded into the DDR PHY
controller at cold boot to determine some LPDDR4 training data. It is
then turned off.
I haven't personally invested any further time in REing this program. I
think it should be possible to save the training configuration data for
a board and then restore them on demand, not running the program
anymore, but I don't have the time and resources to implement/test this
at the moment. We're focused on shipping Reforms to backers and on
designing further CPU/RAM modules.
Best
Lukas
Wojciech ****** <******@******************> writes:
> Hello,
>
>
> The topic of MNT Reform keeps showing up again and again on Trisquel
> forums. Somebody just mentioned it again here:
> https://trisquel.info/en/forum/eoma68-2021-update#comment-157044
>
>
> I decided to ask - what is the state of laptop's boot process? Is the
> blob still necessary for booting i.MX8M?
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Wojtek
###################
This means there weren't any actual failed attempts in REing or bypassing this blob. Problem could be solvable if someone puts effort into it... It's the same SoC as in Librem5, so I'm surprised nobody's doing anything
> It's the same SoC as in Librem5
Do you mean that the Librem 5 also ships with this blob?
> so I'm surprised nobody's doing anything
That's probably because the Reform backers do not mind, so they do not see it as a problem. MNT seems to care about it, although not to the point of making it top priority. They are being transparent about it anyway, so everyone can make up their mind.
> Do you mean that the Librem 5 also ships with this blob?
Yes, I mean exactly that.
> That's probably because [...]
I had mostly Purism in mind. Sure, other users of the SoC could also attempt to solve this issue - yet, Purism is the company which actually has the resources to RE the blob. I guess they're not going to as long as they manage to stretch the rules enough to get the blob covered by the RYF exception for peripherals' firmware.
The reason Purism are not doing it is also most probably because their backers and buyers do not care about it. They buy privacy blurb, not hardware freedom.
That said, last time I checked Librem 5 was not in the RYF list, and for good reasons. That did not stop the FSF from putting it first in its last two Giving Guides, which raised a few eyebrows here and there. As you probably remember:
https://trisquel.info/en/forum/fsf-giving-guide-guides-users-toward-non-free-software
I am a translator!
>> Do you mean that the Librem 5 also ships with this blob?
> Yes, I mean exactly that.
Did you find any place where Purism clearly says this?
I cannot find a page on their site that clearly states the non-free software parts and information such as what they promise in their articles of incorporations:
The Corporation will use hardware and software that respects users’ rights. Non-free, or proprietary, chipsets that require installable firmware binaries into the kernel will be strictly prohibited within the Corporation. If a suitable component part that fully respects these rights is not available in the marketplace, the Corporation may use a part in its products that does not meet this standard if it is necessary for the product to be fit for purpose, in which case the Corporation will: (1) provide purchasers of the product, in writing, with strong evidence that a free version of the part with equivalent specifications is not available and that developing a free version of such would not be feasible at that point in time; and (2) actively pursue the development of a free version of the part for its future products.
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Librem-5-Secondary-Proc-Blobs
I understand this is the same blob that causes problems with eoma68
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