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On Monday, 9 March 2020 18:08:54 GMT Grant Edwards wrote: |
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> On 2020-03-09, Mark Knecht <markknecht@×××××.com> wrote: |
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> > Would that be the consensus of the group here? |
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> |
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> After decades of buying AMD, over the past 5 years or so all my |
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> machines gradually shifted to Intel. |
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> |
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> So you can probably bet _that's_ not what you want... |
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My thoughts on the same topic: |
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I have not seen *laptop* OEMs offering BIOS/UEFI firmware updates (which would |
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include any applicable CPU microcode updates) for any longer than 18 months |
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from the day of releasing their laptops onto the market. Desktop MoBo OEMs |
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are usually better, I've received firmware updates on ASUS MoBos for 5 years |
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or so, with continuous improvements on stability and performance. |
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If the laptop's MoBo firmware is flash-able with coreboot you're in (partial) |
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luck. You still need microcode binary blobs and for these you are at the |
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mercy of the CPU manufacturers. With the Intel debacle over the last couple |
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of years I realised their interest to keeping us as customers is limited to < |
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5 years. Beyond that they expect us to throw our PCs in the recycling bin and |
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buy their latest offering, which errm ... hold on! o_O As we just found out |
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Intel's latest ROM offering is compromised straight off the production line |
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and given their prior form I wouldn't think they would rush to recall and |
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replace their borked hardware any time soon. |
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Are AMD that much better? They probably are, but not by much. |
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Both Intel and AMD are now only offering CPU/APUs with embedded OOB |
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coprocessors (ME/PSP) and many of the vulnerabilities revealed over the last |
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few years are caused by these backdoors at the heart of the PC. |
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Since I don't feel comfortable running a machine designed to be controlled/ |
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controllable remotely before my OS of choice has even booted up, I am not keen |
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on spending my money with either of these corporates. At some point I'll look |
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at saving up for a POWER9 workstation, which at least runs coreboot, but I |
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have no solution at this stage for a laptop and not much hope Intel or AMD are |
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going to change their design policy anytime soon. |
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