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N a v i g a t i o n m e n u
T o g g l e n a v i g a t i o n
● A b o u t ● A b o u t L i b r e P l a n e t ● M i s s i o n S t a t e m e n t ● F o u n d i n g d o c u m e n t s ● S u p p o r t t h i s C o m m u n i t y ● C o d e o f C o n d u c t ● A n t i - h a r a s s m e n t p o l i c y ● T e a m s ● A c t i v i s t s ● W i k i H e l p e r s ● L i b r e P l a n e t A r t i s t s ● F S F C o m m u n i t y T e a m ● L o c a l & S t u d e n t T e a m s ● C o n f e r e n c e s ● L i b r e P l a n e t C o n f e r e n c e ● N o n - o f f i c i a l ● G e t i n v o l v e d ● P a r t i c i p a t e ● D i s c u s s i o n c h a n n e l s ● E v e n t s ● L o g i n
F r o m L i b r e P l a n e t < G r o u p : H a r d w a r e | C o m p u t e r s | L a p t o p s | F r e e a b l e l a p t o p s
J u m p t o : n a v i g a t i o n , s e a r c h
3 WiFi
4 Storage
5 Status
6 Other differences with a Libreboot Thinkpad
7 References
Introduction
This page research if it's possible to replace a Libreboot Thinkpad with a Pinebook PRO and how much freedom issue the Pinebook PRO has.
Research
Nonfree firwmares:
Internal WiFi / Bluetooth [1 ]
dptx.bin: The internal display works without it but the external displays won't work without it.
There might be other too like video decoding offload (which can be avoided by decoding videos with the CPU) but if they are they are not very visible: users will probably not notice any lack of functionality.
WiFi
An adapter [2 ]
Thinkpenguin also seems to have some potentially compatible cards that use the ath9k driver:
I don't know if the length match or if you an E only keyed cards works with an A/E NGFF adapter.
Alternatively it's possible to use external USB WiFi cards, but they will be limited to 2.4GHz and there is a tradeoff to make between the range and the key size.
Some more research might be needed to understand if it's possible to easily mount an USB WiFi card inside that laptop.
Storage
16MiB flash chip: can be used for the bootloader[3 ]
Removable eMMC (64G or 128G available at the time of writing)
MicroSD (SD3.0, MMC 4.5, up to 50MB/s)
Adding an NVMe is also possible but this has some downsides:
This occupies the PCIe connector. It might be a better idea to try to find a way to connect an ath9k compatible card on that connector.
The NVMe has an internal nonfree firmware and probably has DMA access to your RAM
Status
According to the "Pinebook Pro no longer WIP" thread on the guix-devel mailing list, the Pinebook PRO seems to have some of the basic functionality working and it doesn't seem to need any extra patches on top of linux-libre.
Other differences with a Libreboot Thinkpad
Libreboot Thinkpad
Pinebook PRO
Architecture
i686 on some laptops
x86_64 on others
See distribution compatibility for more infos.
Embedded controller firmware
Nonfree
Handles:
The keyboard
The power up sequence (voltages, power rails)
WiFi / bluetooth power on/off
Battery charging
etc
Unsure if it's free software.
probably handles similar things.
RAM
4G, 8G possible with specific RAM DIMMs.
4G soldered
Ethernet
Integrated
Through USB adapter
Display
Mate, good enough for working.
Mate, more recent / better?
Debug
UART in the dock on some laptops, or absent on other
It might be possible to add an UART through the express card connector
USB Debug (not very practical)
Reinstalling Libreboot can be time consuming on some laptops (~1day) while it can be really fast on other (minutes)[4 ]
External UART connector (multiplexed with sound?)
TODO: What is the SOC/device boot order?
References
↑ https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=9727
↑ https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php?title=Pinebook_Pro_SPI
↑ It of course depends on people's skills, flash programmer speeds and so on but it's not uncommon to spend ~8h to disassemble and reassemble a Thinkpad T400 when doing it the first time, while it probably takes less than 10 minutes for a Thinkpad X200. Doing that is needed to install Libreboot or reinstall it if the computer doesn't boot anymore.
R e t r i e v e d f r o m " https://libreplanet.org/wiki?title=Group:Hardware/Computers/Laptops/Freeable_laptops/Pinebook_PRO&oldid=70247 "
T h e F r e e S o f t w a r e F o u n d a t i o n ( F S F ) i s a n o n p r o f i t w i t h a w o r l d w i d e m i s s i o n t o p r o m o t e c o m p u t e r u s e r f r e e d o m . W e d e f e n d t h e r i g h t s o f a l l s o f t w a r e u s e r s . ( R e a d m o r e )
C a m p a i g n s ● H i g h P r i o r i t y F r e e S o f t w a r e P r o j e c t s ● F r e e J a v a S c r i p t ● S e c u r e B o o t v s R e s t r i c t e d B o o t ● G N U O p e r a t i n g S y s t e m ● D e f e c t i v e b y D e s i g n ● S e e a l l c a m p a i g n s
G e t I n v o l v e d ●
S e n d y o u r f e e d b a c k o n o u r t r a n s l a t i o n s a n d n e w t r a n s l a t i o n s o f p a g e s t o c a m p a i g n s @ f s f . o r g . C o p y r i g h t © 2 0 1 3 – 2 0 2 3 F r e e S o f t w a r e F o u n d a t i o n , I n c .
P r i v a c y P o l i c y , J a v a S c r i p t l i c e n s e i n f o r m a t i o n
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