new and improved libreboot
I started lurking around libreboot project years ago when it was primarily "marketed" as the better way to get rid of Intel ME, with other inferior way being the me_cleaner. The situation was dire, it only worked with oldern thinkpads with many caveats, some ancient server board and the only light at the end of the tunnel I will never stop harping about - Talos 2
https://www.raptorcs.com/TALOSII/
So I decided to check the project out again recently and see what's up, and lo and behold it's chock full of new shiny pretty thinkpads. Press F to doubt, and turns out it abandoned all of the principles and turned into a coreboot distro with no clear goal. OK but now there is conoeboot and that is supposed to be what oringinal libreboot was, so I check that out and omg my favorite smol PC OptiPlex 7020 is now supported (with caveats as always)!!! Wow, such conoe, very boot... read fineprint: "Intel ME - Present. Can be disabled with me_cleaner."
Great so conoeboot = me_cleaner. Sad.
What's the point then? We're going to completely destroy libreboot abandoning all principles, theeen, to dodge the pitchforks, we're gonna make conoeboot which is still less than the original, and then we're gonna point at new libreboot and say how much worse it is in comparison. So basically gaslighting, that's the point of these projects now. And I almost impulsed a refurbished 7020 to tinker with. Might still do it, cause they are totally worth the 100$, and it's not like I'm ever going to fill that imaginary Talos 2 piggy bank of mine.
Jan 27 · 3 months ago · 👍 loop8080
4 Comments ↓
👻 darkghost · Jan 27 at 11:02:
Forgive the mighty ignorance on my part, coreboot does not disable ME?
🐐 namark [OP/mod] · Jan 27 at 11:57:
nah, that's not a goal for coreboot, coreboot wants to boot and you can boot leaving ME untouched, and touching ME can only result in not being able to boot. Exactly how hard you can optionally cripple ME while corebooting depends on the specific chipset, but there are very few in which you can completely wipe ME, and that was the original libreboot goal.
Can you use me_cleaner with any distro?
🐐 namark [OP/mod] · Jan 28 at 07:11:
me_cleaner is not coreboot specific, you can even apply it to stock BIOS (with exceptions), though to figure out the details for any given board you'd still consult coreboot or libreboot docs. I suppose that's another thing libreboot does, document a lot of gnarly firmware stuff, up to voltages and currents and circuit design best practices, sheesh, big deal, I still hate it!