coreboot for Intense PC/MintBox 2

[hwmartin]

I do not warranty or guarantee the coreboot firmware for Intense PC/MintBox 2. By proceeding you acknowledge the risks and assume all liability.

coreboot is an free and open-source (FOSS) firmware for the Intense PC/MintBox 2 which is not supported by CompuLab. Modifying the firmware on your unit will void any remaining warranty, and may brick your hardware.

I recently completed a port of coreboot to the Intense PC/MintBox 2:

coreboot is an extended firmware platform that delivers a lightning fast and secure boot experience on modern computers and embedded systems. As an Open Source project it provides auditability and maximum control over technology.

coreboot completely replaces the Phoenix secureCore Tiano firmware on the Intense PC/MintBox 2.

I have tried to reproduce the functionality of the stock firmware as completely as possible within coreboot. However, due to limited hardware availability, I do not have any FACE modules except the FM-4USB which ships stock with the MintBox 2.

Edit (24/01/2018): FM-LAN-E4-U4 is now working with coreboot master.

Please note that Windows support is currently untested.

If you are interested in this firmware, you can read more about building and flashing the firmware here.

Complexity in flashing the firmware depends on whether you have patched your system for CVE-2017-8083. If you have not, you should be able to flash coreboot without physically disassembling the system. If you have already patched your system, then you will need to disassemble the unit and solder to the flash chips. All this is described in the above article.

Advantages over the CompuLab firmware:

1. Open-source firmware
2. Better RAM support than CompuLab firmware
3. Memtest86+ and iPXE can be included in the image to flash
4. Verified boot via vboot

Disadvantages:

1. Will void your warranty, may lead to owning an expensive brick
2. No support from CompuLab for issues, only coreboot community
3. VBIOS is required to have VGA output from SeaBIOS/bootloader
4. VGA hand off to Windows is currently not working
5. Running me_cleaner breaks SATA
6. coreboot doesn't easily support UEFI boot modes
7. No support for FACE Modules except for FM-4USB

Irad/Maxim, please email me if you want to discuss improving support, my door is always open.

[irads]

Congratulations to Hal Martin for the impressive project - bring-up of coreboot on IPC1.

Thank you for the instructions at https://watchmysys.com/blog/2017/12/cor ... c-mintbox/

Best regards,

[hwmartin]

I have updated the coreboot wiki with the current support status of the Intense PC/MintBox 2:
https://www.coreboot.org/Board:compulab/intense_pc

Thanks go to Irad who sent me the FM-LAN-E4-U4 FACE module! The FACE module highlighted an issue with PCIe bus initialization, but this has been fixed and it is now working in coreboot master.