Technology

37717 readers

412 users here now

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

205

Breaking News! AMD is open sourcing the API for the x86 bootloader (community.amd.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

18 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I think this means we will eventually see a fully open source Coreboot/Libreboot soon. Someone correct me if I am wrong please!

the openSIL github repo

I'm not clear about where this API sits relative to the AMD Platform Security Processor.

found via this post: https://lemmy.world/post/134243

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm surprised that chipmakers waited this long. I have the feeling they all treat their firmware divisions as a necessary evil.

Has there ever been positive news associated with the lowest levels of firmware, or is it at best begrudging "AGESA 4.2.0.0 finally fixed the issue where the memory is clocked down to 250MHz when there are two runners on base" fix notices.

If they can toss the problem on a bunch of enthusiasts and people willing to finance open-source developers, they get it our of their hair and earn some public praise.

Realistically, it might be interesting for long-term platform support-- if someone wants to keep tweaking and optimizing a 10-year-old platform, they'll have more tools at their disposal to do so.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I guess at some point the actual hardware initialization was still something to set yourself they could use to set themselves apart from others. Then it would involve patents and what not. But yes, I can't imagine that there is a lot of magic left for the established platforms. It might be different for entirely new beasts like Apple's "new" machines with a lot of custom chips.