summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/docs/tasks.html
blob: 6ed0a7929963b56b1ce65ced5610aaba7e3f9c2d (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
	<meta charset="utf-8">
	<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">

	<style type="text/css">
		@import url('css/main.css');
	</style>

	<title>Libreboot task list</title>
</head>
<body>
	<div class="section" id="pagetop">
		<h1>Libreboot task list</h1>
			<p>
				Back to <a href="index.html">index.html</a>.
			</p>
	</div>

	<div class="section">
		<h1 id="tasks">
			Important tasks for the libreboot project
		</h1>
			<p>
				This page is part of the git repository, so feel free to submit patches
				adding to or removing from this list.
			</p>
	</div>

	<div class="section">

		<h1 id="board_ports">Board ports</h1>
			<ul>
				<li>
					Libreboot has so far been biased towards Intel. This needs to end (the sooner, the better). A nice start:
					<ul>
						<li>
							Lenovo G505S (works without CPU microcode updates).
							Videos BIOS is not yet fully replaced (openatom doesn't have a working framebuffer, yet, but
							it can draw a bitmap in user space, using a special utility) - 
							<a href="https://github.com/alterapraxisptyltd/openatom">openatom in github</a>.
							SMU needs replacing (ruik/funfuctor/patrickg/mrnuke might be able to help).
						</li>
						<li>
							ASUS KFSN4-DRE - fam10h, already in coreboot, seems to have native graphics initialization already,
							fam10h, already in coreboot. Works without CPU microcode updates, has native graphics initialization
							(text-mode and framebuffer mode). PLCC flash chip, but can be read/flashed from factory firmware
							so just boot up, dump, hot-swap and flash the dump to make a backup, then check that the system
							boots with the backup. Then flash the original chip with libreboot. <b>External PLCC flash programmer
							not needed!</b>
						</li>
						<li>
							ASUS KGPE-D16 - code not yet public,
							ported by <a href="http://raptorengineeringinc.com/content/base/main.htm">Raptor Engineering Inc.</a> (USA). 
							They are asking for 50K* USD to pay for the work to upstream the code (do code review, add more patches, 
							get it merged in coreboot master repository - a lot of work!). Crowd funding will be necessary.
							Crowd funding will be necessary.
							See <a href="http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2015-April/079773.html">coreboot mailing list</a>.
							This board uses DIP-8 (socket) SPI flash, so it's easy to flash (external flashing required for initial install).
							* was 35K. The extra 15K is a stretch goal for S3 support and full text-mode graphics initialization (bugs eliminated).
						</li>
						<li>
							F2A85-M and E350M1 (libreboot_*_headless.rom). Test openatom (video BIOS replacement). SMU firmware is a problem. XHCI firmware is a problem.
						</li>
						<li>
							<b>TODO: Add ARM candidates here (the above systems are all AMD).</b>
							<ul>
								<li>Look into the <i>rockchip</i> (rk3288. note: mali gpu. one or two blobs might need replacing) and <i>IBM 'POWER8' platforms</i></li>
							</ul>
						</li>
						<li><b>This list needs to expand!</b></li>
					</ul>
				</li>
				<li>
					That doesn't mean Intel is off the table just yet:
					<ul>
						<li>
							ThinkPad R500: <a href="http://projects.mtjm.eu/work_packages/43">http://projects.mtjm.eu/work_packages/43</a>
						</li>
						<li>
							ThinkPad W500: they all use switchable graphics (ATI+Intel). Unknown if PM45 is compatible with GM45.
						</li>
						<li>
							ThinkPad X61: ICH8, i965
							lubko in #coreboot. <a href="https://github.com/lkundrak/coreboot/tree/x61">https://github.com/lkundrak/coreboot/tree/x61</a>
							- raminit still isn't done, there might be other parts that need to be finished (probably EC).
							This system comes with a ME, but it's optional like in GM45, and can be removed.
							<ul>
								<li>T61: <a href="http://review.coreboot.org/#/c/8482/">http://review.coreboot.org/#/c/8482/</a></li>
							</ul>
						</li>
						<li>
							Non-lenovo GM45 laptops:
							<ul>
								Dell Latitude E6400 - quite a few of these online. This is a good laptop to target in coreboot and libreboot.
								NOTE: EC support. ALSO: DDR2 memory (coreboot raminit for GM45 currently only supports DDR3)</li>
							</ul>
						</li>
						<li>
							<b>Desktop</b> system: Dell Optiplex 755. There are <b>lots</b> of these available online.
							ICH9. DDR2 RAM (needs work in coreboot). No EC (it's a desktop). It will require
							quite a bit of work in coreboot, but this is a very good candidate.
							The ME can probably be removed and disabled, using ich9gen without any modifications
							(or with few modifications). Where are the datasheets? Schematics?
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
			</ul>
			<p><a href="#pagetop">Back to top of page.</a></p>
	</div>
	
	<div class="section">
		<h1>Platform-specific bugs</h1>
			<ul>
				<li>
					Fix these issues on GM45/GS45 targets:
					<ul>
						<li>
							X200: text-mode is broken. only framebuffer graphics work. Git-bisect is needed.
						</li>
						<li>
							X200/X60: battery drained even while system is "off" on some systems. investigate.
						</li>
						<li>
							Sound (internal speaker) broken on T500 (works in lenovobios). external speaker/headphones work.
							- probably a different hda_verb
						</li>
						<li>
							Fix remaining incompatible LCD panels in native graphics on T500. 
							See <a href="hcl/t500.html">hcl/t500.html</a>.
						</li>
						<li>
							T400/T500/R400 (tested on T400): UART (serial port) doesn't work. Investigate.
							(already tried enabling early h8 dock option. some RE with superiotool is needed).
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
				<li>
					<b>Finish all work listed in <a href="future/index.html">future/index.html</a></b>
				</li>
				<li>
					Fix these issues on i945 targets (X60/T60/macbook21)
					<ul>
						<li>
							i945: fix VRAM size (currently 8MB. should be 64MB). 
							See <a href="future/index.html#i945_vram_size">future/index.html#i945_vram_size</a>.
						</li>
						<li>
							Fix remaining incompatible LCD panels in native graphics on T60. 
							See <a href="future/index.html#lcd_i945_incompatibility">future/index.html#lcd_i945_incompatibility</a>.
						</li>
						<li>
							i945: the intel video driver used to initialize the display without native graphics initialization
							and without the extracted video BIOS. It no longer does, so investigate why it does not, and fix
							the regression (fix has to be done in the kernel, Linux).
							See <a href="http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2014-June/078104.html">http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2014-June/078104.html</a> and
							<a href="http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2014-June/078105.html">http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2014-June/078105.html</a>
						</li>
						<li>
							Add fake_vbt tables on i945 systems (also GM45).
						</li>
						<li>
							Commit 26ca08caf81ad2dcc9c8246a743d82ffb464c767 in coreboot, see the while (1) loop that
							waits for the panel to power up on i945. This is an infinite loop if the panel doesn't power up.
							Fix it. Also, are there panels that don't power up? Test this, and fix it.
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
			</ul>
			<p><a href="#pagetop">Back to top of page.</a></p>
	</div>
	
	<div class="section">
		<h1>
			Flashing from lenovobios to libreboot (and vice versa)
		</h1>
			<ul>
				<li>
					Implement everything outlined in
					<a href="hcl/gm45_remove_me.html#demefactory">hcl/gm45_remove_me.html#demefactory</a>
					and test it.
				</li>
			</ul>
			<p><a href="#pagetop">Back to top of page.</a></p>
	</div>

	<div class="section">
		<h1>Payloads</h1>
			<ul>
				<li>
					Add ProteanOS payload to systems with big enough flash chips. (eg X200/R400).
					This page (outdated, but still useful according to the maintainer) has some info:
					<a href="http://www.proteanos.com/doc/plat/porting/">http://www.proteanos.com/doc/plat/porting/</a>.
					pehjota says that once the port is done, prokit can be modified to generate the entire
					distribution as a vmlinuz and initrd.img file.
				</li>
			</ul>
			<p><a href="#pagetop">Back to top of page.</a></p>
	</div>

	<div class="section">
		<h1>Build system</h1>
			<ul>
				<li>re-enable building of txtmode images (get memtest86 working again first, and fix gm45 txtmode)</li>
				<li>
					tpearson's patches for gm45 have been rebased. update coreboot-libre again.
				</li>
				<li>
					When downloading coreboot/grub/memtest/etc using the download scripts, it currently does
					not check the integrity of these sources at all. Libreboot releases are signed, but
					what can be done to improve it is to check the sha512sums of all files downloaded
					by these scripts (which are in the git repository, but not the release archives,
					because the release archives already include these sources). Do this for all
					non-integrated modules used in libreboot.
				</li>
				<li>Make memtest86+ build using coreboot's own crossgcc toolchain. Currently,
				memtest86+ doesn't even work at all when cross-compiled using the toolchain in x86-64 trisquel7</li>
				<li>
					Make libreboot (all of it!) build reproducibly. This is very important.
					See <a href="http://projects.mtjm.eu/work_packages/16">http://projects.mtjm.eu/work_packages/16</a>.
				</li>
				<li>
					build/release/archives currently fails on Parabola (it only works well in Trisquel).
					That script is buggy, and full of ugly hacks anyway, 
					so re-write it and make it modular/portable this time.
				</li>
			</ul>
			<p><a href="#pagetop">Back to top of page.</a></p>
	</div>

	<div class="section">
		<h1>Improvements to the utilities</h1>
			<ul>
				<li>
					Make ich9gen/ich9deblob portable. They both rely extensively on bitfields, and they assume
					little-endian; for instance, mapping a little endian file directly to a struct, instead
					of serializing/deserializing. Re-factor both utilities and make them fully portable.
					See <a href="http://projects.mtjm.eu/work_packages/18">http://projects.mtjm.eu/work_packages/18</a>
				</li>
				<li>
					Make ich9gen/ich9deblob/demefactory show GPL license info via <i>--version</i> argument.
				</li>
				<li>
					Adapt linux-libre deblob scripts for use with coreboot. Libreboot is already deblobbed
					using its own script, but updating it is still a bit too manual. linux-libre's deblob
					scripts do an excellent job and (adapted) will make it much easier to maintain coreboot-libre.
				</li>
			</ul>
			<p><a href="#pagetop">Back to top of page.</a></p>
	</div>

	<div class="section">
		<h1>
			BeagleBone Black
		</h1>
			<ul>
				<li>Get libre distros ported to it. Eg proteanos, trisquel, parabola, librecmc and so on.</li>
				<li>See <a href="https://coreboot.org/BBB_screwdriver">BBB screwdriver</a> - from the coreboot
				project, this is an openwrt-based image for the BBB that comes with EHCI enabled out of the box.
				Look into re-basing that on librecmc (librecmc is a deblobbed version of openwrt).</li>
			</ul>
			<p><a href="#pagetop">Back to top of page.</a></p>
	</div>

	<div class="section">
		<h1>Documentation improvements</h1>
			<ul>
				<li>
					Add info about FTDI 	FT232H usbdebug (BBB could be used for this):
					<a href="http://review.coreboot.org/#/c/10063">http://review.coreboot.org/#/c/10063</a>
				</li>
				<li>
					Add information from hw registers on all boards.
					Get them for the following remaining boards: X60, T60, macbook21, R400
				</li>
				<li>
					There are no instructions for how to use the GRUB terminal to find
					a grub.cfg manually, or how to boot an installed GNU/Linux manually, 
					so some users get stuck after the initial installation of libreboot
					not knowing how to boot the GNU/Linux system that they had before installing.
					Fix that. (also, promote the FSF-endorsed distros while you do it)
				</li>
				<li>
					Add guides for GM45 laptops in docs/security/
				</li>
				<li>
					Add guides for GM45 laptops in docs/hardware/
				</li>
				<li>
					Convert documentation to Sphinx/ReST
					See <a href="http://projects.mtjm.eu/work_packages/5">http://projects.mtjm.eu/work_packages/5</a>
					and <a href="http://projects.mtjm.eu/work_packages/12">http://projects.mtjm.eu/work_packages/12</a>
					<ul>
						<li>Translations are needed for the documentation and the main website.
						Most people don't speak English as a first language.</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
				<li>
					LUKS key in initramfs: Add Trisquel documentation for docs/gnulinux/encrypted_trisquel.html.
					See <a href="http://projects.mtjm.eu/work_packages/39">http://projects.mtjm.eu/work_packages/39</a>
				</li>
				<li>
					PLCC flashing guide is needed:
					<a href="http://blogs.coreboot.org/files/2013/07/vultureprog_shuttle_sbs.jpg">image</a>,
					<a href="http://blogs.coreboot.org/files/2013/08/vultureprog_probing.jpg">image</a>,
					<a href="http://blogs.coreboot.org/files/2013/06/superboosted2.jpg">image</a> - 
					work with mrnuke on getting info about vultureprog PLCC flashing into libreboot. Libreboot needs
					server boards. <a href="https://github.com/mrnuke/vultureprog">https://github.com/mrnuke/vultureprog</a>,
					<a href="https://github.com/mrnuke/qiprog">https://github.com/mrnuke/qiprog</a>,
					<a href="https://github.com/mrnuke/vultureprog-hardware">https://github.com/mrnuke/vultureprog-hardware</a>.
					He also uses the sigrok logic analyzer (free/libre):
					<a href="http://www.dx.com/p/logic-analyzer-w-dupont-lines-and-usb-cable-for-scm-black-148945">http://www.dx.com/p/logic-analyzer-w-dupont-lines-and-usb-cable-for-scm-black-148945</a>
				</li>
			</ul>
			<p><a href="#pagetop">Back to top of page.</a></p>
	</div>

	<div class="section">
		<h1>Project (institutional) improvements</h1>
			<ul>
				<li>
					Add proper guidelines for contributions,
					like <i>Development Guidelines</i> on the coreboot wiki. For instance, require
					<i>Sign-off-by</i> in all commits for libreboot. Consulting with the FSF about this
					(licensing@fsf.org).
				</li>
				<li>
					<b>Libreboot needs to be factory firmware, not the replacement. It needs to be *the* firmware.
					Consult with the openlunchbox project (and maybe others) on getting hardware manufactured
					with libreboot support (out of the box, from the factory).</b>
				</li>
				<li>
					PROPOSAL (only a proposal, for now):
					Look into the possibility of expanding libreboot to support non-coreboot systems. (u-boot, for instance). 
					Currently, libreboot presents itself as a deblobbed coreboot distribution. There are other systems out there
					that use other firmware, such as u-boot, which libreboot could theoretically support. This would mean that
					the build scripts know how to build things other than just coreboot/grub.
					<ul>
						<li>Allwinner A10 (ARM) SoCs</li>
						<li>PMON?</li>
						<li>barebox (u-boot derivative)</li>
						<li>etc</li>
						<li>
							<a href="http://zedboard.org/product/zedboard">http://zedboard.org/product/zedboard</a>
							might be a candidate, according to the main developer of openlunchbox.
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
				<li>
					Set up a routine (project-wise) for testing each system with the latest kernel version.
					See <a href="http://projects.mtjm.eu/work_packages/22">http://projects.mtjm.eu/work_packages/22</a>
					and <a href="http://projects.mtjm.eu/work_packages/21">http://projects.mtjm.eu/work_packages/21</a>
				</li>
			</ul>
			<p><a href="#pagetop">Back to top of page.</a></p>
	</div>

	<div class="section">
		<h1>EC firmware</h1>
			<p>
				<a href="http://www.coreboot.org/Embedded_controller">http://www.coreboot.org/Embedded_controller</a>
				Replace this on all libreboot targets. Some laptops use an extra SPI flash chip for the EC, some
				have EC in the main chip, some don't use SPI flash at all but have the firmware inside the EC chip itself.
				If the EC has integrated flash then you need to be able to get to the pins on the chip or be able to program them over LPC or SPI (if they have that feature).
				The lenovo laptops currently supported in libreboot all use H8 EC chips (contains flash inside the chip).
				Read the datasheets on how to externally programme the EC. Chromebooks seem to have free EC
				(<a href="https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform/ec/+/master/chip/">https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform/ec/+/master/chip/</a>).
			</p>
			
			<p><a href="#pagetop">Back to top of page.</a></p>
	</div>

	<div class="section">

		<p>
			Copyright &copy; 2014, 2015 Francis Rowe &lt;info@gluglug.org.uk&gt;<br/>
			This document is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License and all future versions.
			A copy of the license can be found at <a href="cc-by-sa-4.txt">cc-by-sa-4.txt</a>.
		</p>

		<p>
			This document is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
			but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
			MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See <a href="cc-by-sa-4.txt">cc-by-sa-4.txt</a> for more information.
		</p>
		
	</div>

</body>
</html>