What about any other x86 option? Is there anything from AMD?
Might it be possible to adapt an existing Ryzen SoM to Reform? Avnet has one that has 8 GB RAM and the APU on a SODIMM-like card… MSC SM2S-RYZ - Avnet Embedded
That said one of the constraints would be cooling, so it’s unlikely you’d get quad-core Ryzen using the current mainboard + adapter + SoM. This also presumes that no proprietary chips (like the Intel ITE Lukas mentioned) are required on the mainboard.
Edit: Removed the really uncivil stuff, I didn’t think it would be a problem, I am sorry… I was not using my good judgment…
The rest mostly applies though? I think?
In all seriousness though, I do want to avoid x86 in the future as much as possible… intel was okay up until third gen, amd is better in newer designs, drivers are more open source aka… point being, they both really are horrible in general.
Besides, a bunch of problems exist with x86 crap:
Blobs required for too many things
backdoors
vulnerabilities keep propping up
inefficient
they take way too much heat to run and/or electricity
Side note, I want to use as little electricity as possible.
Another side note?
Whenever the pocket mnt reform comes out, I hope someone can make there an option to have the brightness set on boot set to whatever you want.
Display eats a lot of battery life in most devices… and since mntmn said 3 hours is the most likely amount we can get at this time with those LifePo4 batteries for that device, so that would help.
I would hope though whoever does this, will do it in a K.I.S.S kind of way, so that it requires almost no depends to make work.
I think if anyone runs the original Mnt Reform with a BSD or something like KissLinux, that would also be very helpful for that too.
Please keep your language civil.
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I think a Ryzen based module would be awesome, and for me personally would probably be about as good as this laptop can get, but I think bnys is absolutely correct to flag up thermals as a possible issue with this.
sable: the whole point of mnt is that you get the choice of what you run in it. whether or not you personally want an x86 module or not, more choice benefits everyone
Actually, your right, completely my bad… I will change what I wrote and remove the part you want removed. I awesome its the part where I said screw off to intel devs?
I guess in hindsight, that was exceedingly bad to do here.
Sorry…
My bad, you are right about the choice part, that being said, I think some of what I said still applies:
Blobs required for too many things
backdoors
vulnerabilities keep propping up
inefficient
they take way too much heat to run and/or electricity
I think the first two and the last one are deal breakers for using amd for the mnt reform… unless you want to be required to use blobs and possibly overheat the device.
Although, isn’t amd available for the framework laptop?
Not libre probably, but unless there is a libre option, I think its impossible as of now till someone does the equivelant of the me cleaner on the Ryzen processors and other deblobbing efforts, etc…
Though… I wonder how much watts the mnt reform can handle in general.
AMD isn’t available for framework, it may be in future. Would require a complete mainboard replacement.
I suspect the active vs passive cooling debate will come into play before a watt limit. There’s already ARM chips that probably should not be passively cooled in a small case.
Indeed… you do have a good point.
The reason I mentioned the watt limit though is because that can determine how much heat it will produce.
Also, did not know AMD was not available for framework.
That is surprising given they have very new intel processors on it.
Honestly though:
Ivy Bridge is the best freedom friendly intel processors, that aren’t bad as long as you disable intel me.
AMD however has more freedom friendly newer processors then intel albeit, they still have their PSP backdoor, but I wonder if there is hope for framework to use ryzen without that someday. I bet someday that Ryzen will be liberated as much as ivy bridge. No idea, when, but meh… it seems possible to me. 
At least AMD is giving open source graphics drivers for their newer devices, last I checked, not so much for intel.
My understanding is that framework are starting with intel to get themselves established and to not spread themselves too thinly. They seem open to AMD down the line.
We have bigger problems coming up, specifically the microsoft controlled ‘pluton’ blackbox that can be remotely updated as microsoft desire.
If their past history is anything to go by, not only will this be full of exploits, but it’s also likely to be bricked by a buggy and untested update at any given moment. Not to mention the possibility of it being abused by microsoft themselves (oh you want to run linux on your machine? Wrong answer.) This die is in both the ryzen mobile 6xxx series and the future intel cpus.
I love my ryzen system but I absolutely do not want a computer that microsoft has hardware level access to.
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Yeah. No judgement on anyone else’s choices (we all have different needs, and I’m aware that I’m fairly privileged with regard to my position and my abilities), but I’ve concluded that the x86 platform is more or less dead as far as I’m concerned. I’m trying to move onto more open platforms. The more open, the better. I really like the Power9 platform (I can flash self-signed firmware and extend that trust all the way into the userspace! I can even modify the CPU’s microcode if I like!), but it’s targeted at the server market and unlikely to see a portable incarnation anytime soon. So that pretty much just leaves RISC-V (AFAICT) as a long-term solution and ARM (and old Librebooted Thinkpads) as a stopgap. Really glad that MNT is making things happen here.
Pluton is in some ARM chips as well (IIRC Mediatek), and likely more as time goes on
Power9 (TALOS II) looks epic but holy **** the cost of it. And the TDPs come to think of it, a scary thought with the upcoming huge price hikes on electricity.
I think upfront cost is probably the biggest barrier to entry though, along with likely compatibility concerns given the arch differences compared to what most people are familiar with.
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Power9 does have a future, just not in its current form…
If someone were to develop a permissively licensed ultra lightweight version with similar benefits if not better than Risc-V, I wonder what would happen…
Things I hope will happen with microwatt:
Stability/Security
Being Ultra Lightweight in how much watts/heat it uses
Being Fast like Risc-V and having other similiar benefits akin to or better than Risc-V
No idea how the microwatt process is going though.
I wonder…
Post deleted, please be respectful when talking about other projects, companies and people.
I hear you, won’t happen again. It was foolish, no matter who it is about.
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@minute I found something out of interest, no idea how quick this will be, but I asked a question from the Microwatt github repo…
These are the links I was given…
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OpenPOWER-Microwatt-Fab
https://archive.fosdem.org/2021/schedule/event/switchtoopenpowerhardware/attachments/slides/4607/export/events/attachments/switchtoopenpowerhardware/slides/4607/Fosdem_2021_Switch_OH_PowerArchitecture.pdf
https://www.powerpc-notebook.org/
Curious if you or anyone else has seen all of these.
Seems someday it could be a good option
I actually got around to taking a look at that module, sadly they dont seem to publish any kind of technical stuff so no idea how easy or not it would be to build a converter board.
True, but it seems a major player is interested in microwatt… if you read one of the links, although its a mixed blessing, it means google might help this arch get support, the downside is that Google funding anything is well… suspicious…
That is unfortunate. I do think heat is the main concern. I think the best way forward for the Reform, would probably be something like the RPI support. The RPI4, for example, has more grunt and can be gotten with 8gb RAM.
Honestly, performance wise, I’m happy with the current SoC, but I just want more RAM.
Still I’m very happy with what the Reform is right now. The future is bright. Especially with the Pocket Reform on the horizon.
Agree with you 100% on the pocket mnt reform, but as for the OpenPOWER future, I think it is brighter than you think long term, as long as Google really is serious, about wanting a fully open source LIGHTWEIGHT processor. They probably want it under a pushover license or permissive license, which is fine by me, as long as it isn’t backdoored to hell and back. Like *cough x86 *cough
That being said, you did see my links I put on my earlier post, didn’t you?
If they can succeed, things might be brighter than they appear.
Btw, small edits: I forgot to mention, these links focus on making OpenPOWER extremely lightweight, although it probably also cuts the normal speed by at least 8 or more if I had to guess.
Though it is already extremely fast, so meh… doesn’t matter.
My two cents.