Group: Hardware/Computers/Laptops/Freeable laptops/Pinebook PRO

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 => Use another WiFi / Bluetooth adapter on another bus (USB, PCIe, etc).
• 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 exists to enable to connect NGFF A/E key WiFi cards.

Thinkpenguin also seems to have some potentially compatible cards that use the ath9k driver:

• The TPE-M2NCRD is an "E keyed card" and looks shorter
• The TPE-M2NCRD2 TPE-M2NCRD2 is an "A & E keyed card" and looks longer

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

• 128M flash chip: can be used for the bootloader: This way you could encrypt fully the other storage which have internal nonfree firmwares.
• 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	ARM 64bit 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).	External UART connector (multiplexed with sound?) TODO: What is the SOC/device boot order?