What does HackerNews think of firmware-open?

System76 Open Firmware

Language: C

LattePanda Announces Sigma, a 'Hackable Single Board Server' | Apr 2023
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I mean, it isn’t impossible, just expensive and not worth much outside niche enthusiast markets. Even System76 has a mix of coreboot-with-schematics and more traditional closed hardware [1].

In theory, I would love to pay for a device which is well-documented and provides a repair and modification friendly interface at all levels of hardware and software abstraction but in practice I’ll probably buy a macbook air because they mostly just work and the air is cost competitive vs the “open” niche.

And I don’t know about System76 in particular but my overall impression of binary blob driver acceptance is that the open folks lost that battle which narrows the gap with Apple tech.

[1] https://github.com/system76/firmware-open
The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 as a Linux Laptop | Mar 2023
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> Unless they are featuring coreboot, they just tweaked options in say the Insyde bios, so no, not entirely different.

What about a fully Free CoreBoot firmware and EC?

https://github.com/system76/firmware-open https://github.com/system76/ec

> Personally, I prefer quality.

Me too! It's why I don't waste time with hostile hardware.

I'm also glad I can rely on the original, preinstalled Pop! or Ubuntu distro instead of having to trust some stranger's spin of Arch to get full hardware support, or do it all myself.
Lenovo Vendor Locking Ryzen CPUs with AMD PSB | Jan 2022
While avoiding Chinese-made computer components approaches impossibility the deeper you go, one vendor I'd trust not to fool around with AMD's PSB is System76. Not only are they non-shady, but they also try to open the firmware of the motherboards they use. While their AMD systems aren't quite there yet, the laptops they sell are.

https://github.com/system76/firmware-open

https://github.com/system76/ec

Down the ergonomic keyboard rabbit hole | Oct 2020
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> BTW I wish "normal" keyboards, especially in laptops, took some ideas from the QMK firmware, or adopted it as is.

I completely agree! I believe that System76 laptops allow complete customization of the firmware, including the keyboard.

https://github.com/system76/firmware-open