Coreboot News Archives

Coreboot 4.15 was tagged today as the latest advertised version of this open-source firmware implementation for systems. With this new version are 21 additional laptops and motherboards supported.

A number of System76 laptops saw their Coreboot open-source firmware ports merged to the mainline code-base today.

Recently in Coreboot Git has been more work on expanding its (experimental) 64-bit mode for execution.

For those wanting to get into open-source firmware development or even just to have a small SOHO x86_64 low-cost Intel server platform that is as open as possible, ASRock Rack happens to now boast one of the best solutions.

Coreboot making progress on its temporary RAM initialization code (cache as RAM) means that its usage of the FSP-T binary blob is increasingly unnecessary.

While Intel engineers have been working on Alder Lake support for Coreboot as with other recent CPU generations that open-source firmware/BIOS support remains focused on their reference boards with a particular focus on meeting necessary requirements for Google Chromebook devices. Sadly, there is not much or any in the way of consumer retail motherboard support at this point. For those looking for retail desktop motherboard support for Coreboot, aside from the open-source POWER9 systems out of Raptor Computing, on the x86_64 front it largely means using aging Intel and AMD platforms.

In addition to getting Intel's Alder Lake hybrid processors ready for the Linux kernel and other areas of the operating system stack, Intel's open-source engineers have continued their trend in recent weeks of upstreaming more Alder Lake work into Coreboot.

Libreboot as the Coreboot downstream focused on providing a fully open-source BIOS/firmware replacement without any black boxes / binary blobs is out with a new release. The prior tagged release of Libreboot was all the way back in 2016 while has now been succeeded by a new release albeit in testing form.

It's been a half-year already since Coreboot 4.13 was released so out now is Coreboot 4.14 that is represented by over thirty six hundred new commits adding dozens of new motherboards now supported.

The LinuxBoot project that works to replace some portions of modern Linux server firmware with the Linux kernel and other open-source components has now integrated support for the convenient netboot.xyz project.

Consulting firm 3mdeb that specializes in embedded systems with an emphasis on open-source firmware solutions like Coreboot is hosting an interesting virtual event later today.

Given all the headaches and concerns from the early days of UEFI SecureBoot, for longtime Linux users hearing Microsoft is working on another firmware-level standard in the name of security may raise concerns... Microsoft in conjunction with Intel has been spearheading the Platform Runtime Mechanism (PRM) that is about moving more code out of the System Management Mode (SMM) and executing it within the OS/VMM context. PRM remains a work-in-progress but the Windows support is already ready within Windows Insiders builds while the Linux support will come after the ACPI specification around it has been finalized.

Coreboot 4.13 is out today as the latest tagged version of this open-source firmware platform supporting a wide range of hardware.

With System76 working towards offering more AMD Linux laptop options as well as continuing to expand their line-up of AMD desktop offerings, it appears their next hurdle is on bringing Coreboot to these current-generation AMD platforms.

The German-based 9elements Cyber Security has ported Coreboot to another newer Intel server motherboard.

Coreboot 4.12 is out today as the latest version of this open-source BIOS / system firmware implementation that saw more than 2,600 commits since the previous release.

Oreboot is the effort that has been taking shape over the past year as an open-source focused, Rustlang-based downstream of Coreboot. Oreboot continues advancing in its own right concurrent to the wonderful Coreboot advancements.

Not only is Linux increasingly used within automobiles but it turns out at least one automobile manufacturer is even using Coreboot within their vehicles.

Building upon Coreboot Icelake support that has been coming together recently is now the initial Intel support for Jasperlake and Tigerlake. Additionally, when it comes to the Icelake support, there is experimental/work-in-progress support for the Icelake-powered Razer Blade Stealth laptop.

With all but the very first Google Chromebook devices running Coreboot in place of traditional proprietary BIOS, this has been a big win for Coreboot during the 2010s but there has also been notable offshoots like LinuxBoot and Libreboot.

Thanks to work done by 9elements Cyber Security for an unnamed client, there is now working open-source Intel TXT support for Coreboot with the patches under review for upstream inclusion.

Coreboot 4.11 was released today as the tagged autumn build of Coreboot that is used as an alternative to proprietary BIOS/firmware on motherboards.

While not exactly a big surprise with System76 having done an "OSFC Edition" Coreboot laptop at small scale at the end of the summer, but System76 is now formally announcing two Linux laptops shipping with Coreboot as an alternative to their proprietary BIOS.

There was recently a debate on the Coreboot mailing list about the mission statement / description of this open-source BIOS/firmware replacement for systems that traditionally has liberated boards from proprietary BIOS but still on modern platforms is often pulling in a number of binary blobs.

Oreboot has been in development for a number of months now and while at first may have sounded like a novelty downstream of Coreboot is now proving its usefulness and taking shape.

Ghidra is the open-source reverse engineering tool published by the US National Security Agency as an alternative to existing decompilers/disassemblers and other reverse engineering utilities. As noted earlier this summer, a Google Summer of Code project has been creating Ghidra plug-ins for helping with firmware reverse engineering.

System76 has been making good strides on their Coreboot support for their hardware and they are now readying a System76 Darter Pro OSFC Edition as their apparent first laptop to ship with Coreboot in place of the proprietary BIOS.

While the tide may be eventually turning, as it stands today for those wanting to run Coreboot on x86 desktop/server hardware you are largely limited to generations-old platforms. But now there is a new option and that is a Coreboot port having been completed to a modern Supermicro motherboard for use with Intel Xeon "Kabylake" processors.

Coreboot 4.10 was released today with some 2,500+ commits over the past eight months for this increasingly popular open-source alternative to proprietary BIOS implementations.

With Linux PC vendors System76 and Purism among those embracing Coreboot for freeing more of the system and appealing to open-source enthusiasts, Linux PC vendor TUXEDO from Germany is also eyeing a similar move.

Coreboot now supports the UP Squared, the new single board computer / maker board based on an Intel Apollo Lake SoC.

The US National Security Agency (NSA) has developers contributing to the Coreboot project.

Earlier this month we reported on a new Google Summer of Code project making use of NSA software to help with firmware reverse engineering. So far that effort seems to be paying off of using Ghidra.

It's not often the National Security Agency (NSA) can be thanked for their contributions to society, but in the case of one of their public open-source projects it's going to be used to help the Coreboot folks in reverse-engineering system firmware.

For the past number of months Linux PC maker System76 has been beginning to work on Coreboot support for their products and over the course of May they addressed more obstacles in order to begin having this open-source firmware implementation work on some of their laptops.

Chengdu Haiguang IC Design Co with its Hygon Dhyana processor that is based on AMD Zen IP appears to be pursuing Coreboot support.

The Coreboot open-source firmware/BIOS project has finally seen initial AMD Zen CPU support as part of Google engineers bringing up Picasso APU support in order to handle an upcoming Chromebook launch.

Purism's Coreboot support for their laptops has evolved nicely over the past two years after initially not having support. While their devices have been shipping with Coreboot for some time now, Coreboot updates up until now have involved having to build them from source, but now they are offering pre-built binaries.

Last week during Facebook's Open Compute Project (OCP) Summit, some interesting details were revealed by Intel and their work on this open-source hardware initialization effort alternative to proprietary BIOS/firmware.

In addition to measured boot support being worked on for Coreboot to enhance the security of this open-source BIOS/firmware replacement, support for working with Intel TXT - Trusted Execution Technology - is also happening.

Developers have been working on TPM-backed measured boot support with Coreboot. The patches are pending for upstream Coreboot to be able to offer this trusted boot integration.

Purism has another announcement to make today... PureBoot! PureBoot is the privacy-minded, Linux-focused company's collection of safeguards to protect the boot process while empowering the end-user.

Several System76 laptops are beginning to see Coreboot support! This is a nice sign of progress in making System76 hardware more attractive to Linux/open-source users though they aren't yet shipping Coreboot on the systems by default.

It was just at the end of January last year when the Linux Foundation announced LinuxBoot to replace some firmware with the Linux kernel as another step for freeing traditionally proprietary firmware mostly on server hardware. LinuxBoot does continue making advanced at least on server class hardware and shows a lot of potential for 2019.

The Coreboot folks are ending out 2018 with the release of version 4.9 that has 2,610 changes since their previous release just over a half-year ago.

Intel developers have been punctual in their bring-up of Icelake support within Coreboot.

There are many Sandy Bridge era motherboards that have been freed by Coreboot while if you are looking for more options on something (slightly) newer, a micro-ATX Haswell-era motherboard from ASRock now works under this open-source BIOS implementation.

Last week I wrote about new patches adding Coreboot Flashrom support for Radeon GPUs for being able to re-program the SPI blocks on AMD graphics processors. Initially that was for old Radeon HD 2000 through HD 6000 series hardware but now it's moved onto the GCN world.

Former RadeonHD driver developer Luc Verhaegen is back at the AMD Radeon GPU reverse-engineering game. He's now pursuing Radeon firmware flashing with the Coreboot Flashrom utility.

The OpenBMC project hosted by the Linux Foundation to begin providing open-source Baseboard Management Controller firmware stacks is planning for its first major/official release in 2019 as this collaborative community project from leading software and hardware vendors.