EmbeddedController VS sbctl

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/EmbeddedController cd EmbeddedController make utils sudo ./build/bds/util/ectool #USE AT YOUR OWN RISK - YOU CAN BRICK YOUR LAPTOP

When I was getting ready to flash again, I noticed an issue about the compiler version used to build the firmware binary. I followed the advice, but more importantly I noticed that the issue has been recently fixed, and in the resolution, the maintainer says "Next release (hx20 3.19, hx30 3.07) will include them". It reminded me of something crucial: the Framework EC firmware source code repo doesn't have any particular indication of its level of stability at any given commit. Which commits could be considered fully tested releases? What if the head of the branch introduces a bug that they're working on fixing?

The EC code on the normal Framework devices is already based on the Chrome EC code anyway. https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/EmbeddedController

EC firmware is open sourced by framework: https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/EmbeddedController

There the keyboard input is handled by the embedded controller: https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/EmbeddedController/blob...

On the 16 the keyboard is a USB keyboard that could even be used standalone, without the laptop.

I tried the pre-compiled `ectool` from the TamtamHero's repository as we and comiled the EmeddedController from Framework (from this repository). Both give the same error message.

Great reminder that (as of right now) we're far removed from hardware that is 100% free (as in freedom). The closest we've got is probably provided by Raptor Computing Systems. However not everyone in the world is privileged enough to own such devices unfortunately. And I haven't dabbled into other possible mishaps that come with using such devices. The lack of "free-hardware" is a major concern though. I'd argue that there aren't enough reasons to be optimistic about this as of right now. Therefore our best bet is to not let good be the enemy of perfect; light at the end of the tunnel...

As far as I'm aware the only way to manually change the fan speed is using `ectool` from https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/EmbeddedController/

We open sourced our Embedded Controller (EC) firmware and made it available on GitHub for you to modify if you wish.

No, this isn't true nor correct.

Secure Boot and TPM do offer tangible security benefits and is security features you can take ownership of.

Secure Boot allows your own key hierarchy, and TPM allows you to take ownership.

The linked boot disk isn't really proof that Secure Boot is useless. If you don't set a MOKManager password (as you should), and you change the security state of the machine while present at the keyboard. Yes you can boot things.

This is intended to make sure people can actually decide to trust things. And having insecure defaults makes this less useful. Not very surprising.

TPMs could also prevent attacks like this on your machine.

Incidentally I've invested quite a bit of time in making user-friendly Secure Boot tooling as well. https://github.com/Foxboron/sbctl

No problem! The sbctl package ships with a pretty extensive hook out of the box (https://github.com/Foxboron/sbctl/blob/master/contrib/pacman/ZZ-sbctl.hook). It's been very reliable for automatically resigning .efi executables after updates for me.

sbctl verify returns failed to find EFI system partition despite it definitely is there. It's the same issue as this but remounting or restarting doesn't fix it.

lol

Must actually prevent unsigned images from booting

sudo dnf install asciidoc golang -y VERSION=0.11 cd /tmp curl -L "https://github.com/Foxboron/sbctl/releases/download/${VERSION}/sbctl-${VERSION}.tar.gz" | tar zxvf - cd "sbctl-${VERSION}" make sudo make install cd ~

By far the easiest is to use sbctl to generate, install and use keys to sign your efi images. You can use mkinitcpio to build the unified kernels automatically and a pacman trigger to rerun the sbctl signing when the kernel is updated. Pretty straightforward (once you've done it once).

The question is whether you have any UEFI drivers or not. If they're in the ESP you can just look there to check, but UEFI drivers can also be loaded from PCI cards or baked in the firmware itself.

If you're using a TPM for Secure Boot, you can use the command in https://github.com/Foxboron/sbctl/wiki/FAQ#option-rom to know for sure.