[Arm-netbook] Libreboot and EOMA68

[Xavi Drudis Ferran]

El Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 08:54:20PM +0200, Christian Kellermann deia:
> * Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton <lkcl at lkcl.net> [160822 20:49]:
> > ---
> > crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 7:26 PM, Paul Boddie <paul at boddie.org.uk> wrote:
> > > I found this message...
> > >
> > > http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libreboot/2016-08/msg00048.html
> >
> >  cooool!  they're interested in porting libreboot to the A20.
> 
> That would not make much sense would it? Apart from the U-Boot stuff
> to setup the A20, what good is a BIOS replacement on ARM machines?
>


I asked the same in coreboot list years ago when they started to port
coreboot to ARM. I hardly remember but the point might have been to
enable UEFI (both for functionality and possibly peripheral
initialisation), or take other coreboot payloads, like SO verification
and so on.  There is coreboot for several ARM processors, in most if
not all ARM chromebooks, at least the tegra K1 and rockchip 3268).

But what I understood from the message you link is that libreboot is a
distribution of coreboot (which cleans out the proprietary parts, etc.
because it has other goals, but also adds some tested configurations
and build infraestructure for the toolchain, coreboot, payloads,
etc.). But they are considering in the future to be a distribution 
of coreboot _and u-boot_. I don't understand they want to port coreboot
to the A20, but to include u-boot (for the A-20 or more generally?) into
libreboot. See if payloads can be reused for u-boot, or at least if
the build infraestructure and documentation can include it. 

The goal of libreboot is distributing firmware for as many computers
as possible that allows to use as much of them as possible with 100%
free software. Usually ARM hardware is not too usable with 100% 
free software (except OMAP, freescale, and maybe some others) so u-boot
was not too useful for the computers they support until now. Leah
just knew of an ARM computer that might work with 100% free software
and just thought her goal is more easy to achieve incorporating u-boot
than porting coreboot to the A-20 and then updating the coreboot version
in libreboot to get that support.

There might be the idea to port SeaBIOS to ARM. I can't outright
dismiss it, but I can't think right now of what advantages it would
have. The point is supporting legacy interfaces (to be able to boot
from a CD, or paint to the screen or read from the keyboard form an OS
without an specific driver for the GPU or KBD...) But any legacy code
still calling BIOS would be x86, I guess. So once the BIOS is ported
you would have to port the BIOS client applications or OSes.