Drivers System76
System76 ME Firmware Updates Plan
Yes, you can install Windows 10. Get the drivers from system76, as was previously mentioned. The folks recommending a VM for gaming haven't run demanding games in a VM before. TLDR; demanding games won't run well without considerable effort implementing an advanced configuration of GPU passthrough to a Windows VM. Windows-drivers Windows Drivers for System76 Open Firmware Machines 1 11 0 0 Updated Dec 28, 2020. Edk2 Forked from MrChromebox/edk2 EDK II C 1,252 0 0. If you installed from the Intel/AMD ISO and your system has discrete NVIDIA graphics card or if you added one later on, you will need to manually install the drivers for your card to get the optimum performance. Synaptics SMBus Driver issues are very common, and the internet is loaded with inquiries to fix Synaptics SMBus Driver issue in Windows 10. Proper functioning of Synaptics SMBus Driver is important as it drives the touchpads in many of the laptops out there.
Update: We’ve been getting a lot of great feedback from people on HackerNews and Reddit. Here are answers to a few common questions:
- The System76 Firmware Update Tool is Open Source and located at https://github.com/system76/firmware-update
- The github repo includes the architectural and security details
- Users are prompted to update firmware. A change log is included. Updates are not initiated without user action.
Proprietary code always makes life harder and Intel’s Management Engine (ME) firmware is a particularly challenging chunk of secretive software. Thanks to issues identified by external security researchers, Intel initiated an audit of its ME firmware and discovered multiple critical vulnerabilities as described in SA-00086.
Separately, researchers at Positive Technologies discovered an undocumented High Assurance Platform (HAP) settings in Intel ME firmware. HAP was developed by the NSA for secure computing. Setting the “reserve_hap” bit to 1 disables the ME.
In July of this year we began a project to automatically deliver firmware to System76 laptops similar to the way software is currently delivered through the operating system. We began testing the system in production on August 4th. Now it’s very near ready for laptop customers. For desktops, System76 will work on automated firmware delivery as part of our internal desktop design and manufacturing project.
All of this has culminated in the System76 plan to address Intel’s November 20th vulnerability announcement and our ability to respond to future firmware update needs.
- System76 will automatically deliver updated firmware with a disabled ME on Intel 6th, 7th, and 8th Gen laptops. The ME provides no functionality for System76 laptop customers and is safe to disable.
- The roll out will occur over time and customers will be notified by email prior to delivery
- You must run Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, Ubuntu 17.04, Ubuntu 17.10, Pop!_OS 17.10, or an Ubuntu derivative and have the System76 driver installed to receive the latest firmware and disabled ME on laptops*
- System76 will investigate producing a distro-agnostic command line firmware install tool. Follow us on your preferred social network for updates.
- System76 will not disable the ME on desktops but will provide updated ME firmware
- Desktop customers will receive instructions for updating the ME via email as they are available
There is a significant amount of testing and validation necessary before delivering the updated firmware and disabled ME. Disabling the ME will reduce future vulnerabilities and using our new firmware delivery infrastructure means future updates can roll out extremely fast and with a higher percentage of adoption (over listing affected models with links to firmware that most people don’t install).
It is important to note, while we can currently disable the ME on laptops, Intel may change how the device functions in the future. We implore Intel to retain the ability for device manufactures and consumers to disable the ME.
* To install the system76-driver (for System76 hardware) on Ubuntu based distributions run the following commands
sudo apt-add-repository -y ppa:system76-dev/stable
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y system76-driver
Our internal plan in detail with a list of affected products
System76 Drivers Linux
SA-00086 Vulnerability ME Update Project Plan
Laptops
Disable the ME on all affected laptops
- Test combined ME and firmware delivery in production
- Add UEFI check to driver before starting the firmware daemon
- Fix the remaining automated firmware delivery system bug “Firmware, on occasion, doesn’t install on ‘U’ class products”
- Setup lab with all affected laptops
- Intel 6th Gen
- Bonobo (bonw11)
- Gazelle (gaze10)
- Gazelle (gaze11)
- Kudu (kudu2)
- Kudu (kudu3)
- Lemur (lemu6)
- Oryx (orxp1)
- Oryx (oryp2)
- Serval (serw9)
- Intel 7th Gen
- Bonobo (bonw12)
- Galago (galp2)
- Gazelle (gaze12)
- Kudu (kudu4)
- Lemur (lemu7)
- Oryx (oryp3)
- Serval (serw10)
- Intel 8th Gen
- Bonobo (bonw13)
- Galago (galp3)
- Lemur (lemu8)
- Serval (serw11)
- Procure latest ME’s for affected models
- Set HAP bit to 1 on all ME’s without Intel BootGuard
- Create Intel BootGuard firmware with HAP bit set to 1
- lemu6
- lemu7
- lemu8
- galp2
- galp3
- Add firmware with the new ME to the automated firmware delivery system
- Test delivery of the new ME and firmware to all models
- Confirm that ME is disabled on each model
- Draft email correspondence to customers
- Compile email list of affected lemu8 customers.
- Send email to lemu8 customers
- Send updated firmware and ME to lemu8 customers using automated delivery
- Work with the support team to evaluate any failures
- Based on those results, determine timing and delivery of the remaining firmware and update the project plan
Desktops
Update all affected models with new ME firmware
- Create the “firmware” github repo structure for storing desktop firmware
- Procure updated ME for all models
- Intel 6th Generation
- Meerkat (meer2)
- Ratel (ratp5)
- Sable (sabl6)
- Wild Dog (wilp12)
- Intel 7th Generation
- Leopard (leow8)
- Meerkat (meer3)
- Wild Dog (wilp13)
- If the ME also requires a BIOS update, create customized BIOS for each model.
- Add firmware to the “firmware” github project https://github.com/system76/firmware-desktop
- Design desktop Guide page changes to include notification and firmware download
- Modify guides for affected desktops
- Draft email correspondence to customers
- Compile email list for all affected customers
- Send email notification
System76's pitch is that they add value by ironing out all the compatibility issues Linux can have on laptops, so they 'just work' the way macOS does on MacBooks and Windows does on ThinkPads and Dell XPSes. But they're maddeningly vague about precisely what compatibility issues they're ironing out, at least in their public-facing marketing materials.
Those make their pitch instead on the quality of their hardware -- a front where they are inevitably doomed to lose to deeper-pocketed OEMs like the ones mentioned above -- and on their coming with a custom flavor of Linux called 'Pop!_OS', which as far as I'm concerned is an anti-feature. I don't want to be locked into some hardware vendor's custom Linux ghetto just to get hardware compatibility; I want to run mainstream distros like Ubuntu, Fedora or Debian. You can get a System76 machine with Ubuntu, but if the hardware 'just works' with Ubuntu, why muddle the message by trying to get me to convert to a whole new distro? And if it doesn't 'just work' with Ubuntu, why offer that option in the first place?
It's all very confusing, and leaves me with the vague feeling that they're talking about just about anything they can talk about other than what specifically they're doing to improve Linux's compatibility with laptop hardware. And that makes me worry that they're just taking generic hardware from some Chinese factory and installing Linux on it.
System76 Drivers
If that's what I wanted, I could do it myself, you know?
Drivers System76 Lbp
Note that I'm not saying here that they aren't doing important work improving compatibility. What I'm saying is that, if they're doing that work, they're doing a really good job of hiding it from potential customers. Which is mystifying, since that is the one thing their potential customers would actually care about.