For the unfamiliar, the Intel Management Engine and AMD Platform Security Processor run at a deeper level than the CPU itself and have access to all sorts of system resources. Their official uses include hardware initialization, DRM, and remote menagement (Intel vPro), but if not backdoors themselves, are at least lucrative vectors for one. Anyone who wants nothing to do with the Intel ME is stuck with the Core 2 Duo generation (hence why Stallman is stuck with a ThinkPad T400s) and everything after it requires the ME in some capacity to function normally. For AMD, PSP-less ends with Bulldozer/Piledriver.
What I’m interested in is, for how much research the community behind me_cleaner and Libreboot have done, why hardly anyone have put two and two together and discussed using Zhaoxin CPUs. Those are x86-licensed and available in mobile and desktop variants. Possibly just a lack of coverage in the West aside from a handful articles comparing their performance compared to Intel’s 7th-gen and AMD’s first-gen Ryzen, or a greater focus on the nascent RISC-V systems? And
- How hard could it be to get a Zhaoxin system shipped to the West? Only a matter of Zhaoxin not bothering with international sales, or some import/export restrictions?
- Is a Zhaoxin x86 system really free of their own Intel ME equivalent? Are we missing out on a more performant Libre-compatible x86 platform? Articles I could find neither confirm nor deny this. Want to see if someone more familiar with the Chinese internet knows.
Because many of us remember the death of cyrix
