Damien Zammit - Coreboot
- Coreboot does the minimal initialisation of hardware, hands off rest of the task to a "payload" program like GRUB or SeaBIOS
- sister project Flashrom handles complex task of writing to different flash ROM chips
- lots of manual work for Coreboot to support each new machine, even if similar components
- recent Intel machines require proprietary blob
- AMD have an agreement with Coreboot to provide full specs - yay!
- installing Coreboot on T60
- T60 that Damien owns has about 5 different variations
- visually identify flashrom chip (get hands dirty)
- first time compiled Coreboot and flashed, machine was dead
- you need a recovery method first, eg. external flashing device
- always take a backup of existing BIOS with Flashrom
- was able to restore original BIOS with external clip and Rasberry Pi
- T60 had some unusual settings that reverse flash memory - challenging
- once installed relatively easy to upgrade
- Damien also working on replacing binary blob in modern Intel boards
- null modem cable to give serial output from Coreboot eg. printf
- EFI is just software with an agreed spec. - Coreboot replaces it
- Damien also tried Coreboot on a modern AMD AGESA HUDSON board and worked first time - F2A85M ~ $70 for board
- Libreboot restricted subset of Coreboot without binary blobs
- Also started a wiki about why proprietary blobs in BIOS is bad and issues with Intel
- additional ARC CPU with RSA signed code that can control main CPU and talk to the Internet
- runs a real-time OS
- every model after T60/X60
- not an issue with AMD boards
- additional ARC CPU with RSA signed code that can control main CPU and talk to the Internet
Gnews
OpenSSL Heartbeat vulnerability
- affects both servers and clients
- upgrade Android 4.1 or greater
- not all TLS implementations, not GnuTLS
- not GPG related
- upgrade and replace private keys
- must also restart all services
- broken into mainstream, lots of confusion and bad reporting
- interesting issues relating to free software
- wouldn't have been discovered or fixed easily otherwise
- trolling about Free Software negatives
- interesting that two discovered at same time
- http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/large-crowds-fill-taipei-streets-in-protest-over-china-trade-bill/
- not much happening right now - that makes it hard to fight
- nebulous
- possibly get a talk on this some time from EFA
Project Gooseberry http://cloud.blender.org/gooseberry/
- looking for more donations by this weekend
- feature length film
- ted.com videos supported by free software without flash!
- very much worth a watch - touches on copyright and patent problems
- http://makezine.com/2014/04/02/the-worlds-first-open-source-laptop-makes-its-debut/
- support folks who are supporting open hardware
Talk by Jacob Appelbaum at Libre Planet http://media.libreplanet.org/u/zakkai/m/free-software-for-freedom-surveillance-and-you/
- talks and shows a Novena