After five years of development, the release of the Libreboot 20210522 distribution has been presented. This is the second release in the GNU project and it is currently classified as 'testing', as it requires additional stabilization and testing. Libreboot develops a fully free fork of the CoreBoot project, providing a binary-free alternative to proprietary UEFI and BIOS firmware responsible for initializing the CPU, memory, peripherals, and other hardware components.
Libreboot aims to create a system environment that allows for complete reliance on free software, not only at the operating system level but also in the firmware responsible for booting. Libreboot not only cleans CoreBoot of non-free components but also adds tools to simplify usage for end users, forming a distribution that any user, regardless of special skills, can use.
Among the already well-tested devices where Libreboot can be used without issues are laptops based on Intel GM45 chips (ThinkPad X200, T400), the X4X platform (Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2L), ASUS KCMA-D8, ASUS KGPE-D16, and Intel i945 (ThinkPad X60/T60, MacBook 1/2). Further testing is required for ASUS KFSN4-DRE, Intel D510MO, Intel D945GCLF, and Acer G43T-AM3 boards.
In the new release:
- Support for PCs and laptops has been added: Intel G43T-AM3, Acer G43T-AM3, Lenovo ThinkPad R500, Lenovo ThinkPad X301.
- Supported motherboards for desktops:
- Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2L
- Intel D510MO and D410PT
- Intel D945GCLF
- Apple iMac 5/2
- Acer G43T-AM3
- Supported motherboards for servers and workstations (AMD)
- ASUS KCMA-D8
- ASUS KGPE-D16
- ASUS KFSN4-DRE
- Supported laptops (Intel):
- Lenovo ThinkPad X200
- Lenovo ThinkPad R400
- Lenovo ThinkPad T400
- Lenovo ThinkPad T500
- Lenovo ThinkPad W500
- Lenovo ThinkPad R500
- Lenovo ThinkPad X301
- Apple MacBook1 and MacBook2
- Support for ASUS Chromebook C201 has been discontinued.
- The assembly system lbmk has been improved. After the last release, an attempt was made to completely rewrite the assembly system, but it was unsuccessful and led to a prolonged halt in the formation of new releases. Last year, the rewrite plan was canceled, and work began to enhance the old assembly system and address key architectural issues. The results were embodied in a separate project osboot, which was used as the basis for lbmk. The new version resolves the old shortcomings, is significantly more customizable, and more modular. The process of adding new coreboot boards has been greatly simplified. The work with the payload handlers GRUB and SeaBIOS has been moved to a separate team. UEFI support for Tianocore has been added.
- Support has been added for new code provided by the Coreboot project for initializing the graphics subsystem, which has been moved to a separate module libgfxinit and rewritten from C to Ada. This module is used to initialize the video subsystem in boards based on Intel GM45 chips (ThinkPad X200, T400, T500, W500, R400, R500, T400S, X200S, X200T, X301) and Intel X4X (Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2L, Acer G43T-AMT3, Intel DG43GT).
Source: opennet.ru
