Group: Hardware/Computers/Laptops/Laptops with fatal flaws/Mnt Reform

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Introduction

The current version of the MNT Reform laptop has several freedom issues.

The main one is that it since it uses an I.MX8MQ System on a chip, it cannot boot with free software as it currently requires a nonfree firmware for the DDR4 controller.

However that I.MX8MQ is on a removable card (a System On Module (SOM) card), and replacements for that problematic System On Module are being worked on and/or tried as seen in this thread: https://community.mnt.re/t/ideas-for-processors-for-mnt-reform/237

When this is the case, it would be a good idea to evaluate the freedom and sustainability of this laptop with other system on module (SOM) cards.

There is also ls1028a processor module is currently up for preorder. According to the creator of the MNT Reform laptop this module doesn't require nonfree DDR4 controller firmware unlike the I.MX8MQ, but does require a nonfree blob for the internal eDisplayPort adaptor to be able to use the internal screen [3]. Working around this by using an mPCIe display port module instead of the onboard one is being suggested.

Storage

The MNT Reform uses an NVMe.

If it's connected through PCI. This is a security issue since the I.MX8MQ has no MMU[1]

Even if it had an iommu, in general IOMMUs tend to be too easy to bypass in practice as they are often not well configured by various software components like u-boot, Linux and so on.

But in any case the laptop also has a full size SD card slot, so storage could also be added in this way and the current system on module (SOM) also has an internal eMMC, so maybe the new one does too.

It might be worth checking if the new system on module (SOM) has or can use an internal flash chip to boot as theses don't have any nonfree firmware (unlike most other storage devices like eMMC, microSD, HDDs, SSDs, etc).

References:

Embedded Controller (EC) firmware

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