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.

In making it more easy to update Coreboot system firmware, the ability to update Coreboot via the Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS) with Fwupd is finally being worked out.

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.