"It's not that bad" they told me – Coreboot

Summary

“It’s not that bad” they told me “It’ll be fun” they told me THIS WAS TORTURE AND I HATED ALMOST EVERY SECOND OF IT So I corebooted my Thinkpad T420. Why? Okay firstly what is coreboot? Coreboot is an aftermarket open source BIOS/Firmware replacement for computers. Its main features are faster booting, sometimes being able to do things that your stock BIOS doesn’t let you do, and making you feel better about yourself if you’re some obnoxious FOSS obsessed stallman loving fanatic. Most of what it supports is a bunch of old computers that aren’t really that useful in the modern age if you’re someone who enjoys using the internet Now why did I coreboot my T420? I can upgrade the CPU from Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge (2nd gen Intel core series to 3rd gen) “Fun” project Lets start with a brief rundown of the basic process of installing Coreboot on a laptop. The Basic Process Bolded steps represent pain and suffering Disassemble the laptop until you can access the flash chip that contains the firmware Clip an IC clip onto it and then connect the pins on the clip to something that can read the flash chip (such as Raspberry Pi) Dump the firmware Extract the firmware blobs for certain hardware Strip out as much Intel Management Functionality as you can Compile coreboot with the firmware blobs you extracted Flash the compiled coreboot image back onto the chip Put the whole laptop back together Depending on the machine you’re working on, the disassembly isn’t going to be that bad. If you’re working on a desktop then you barely even have to do anything. Unfortunately I was working with a T420. The Disassembly I have taken apart and disassembled many laptops in my day for repairs. I have dealt with a lot of laptops both good and bad. Cheap and Expensive. Thin and Thick. This is one of my least favorite machines I have ever worked on. So the Thinkpad T420. It’s built like a fucking tank. I mean it’s a 12-13 year old Thinkpad of course it is. Unfortunately that means there’s a lot o...