The release of the CoreBoot project 25.12 has been published, developing a free alternative to proprietary firmware and BIOS. The project's code is distributed under the GPLv2 license. The new version includes 680 changes prepared with the participation of 110 developers.
Key Changes:
- Support for motherboards has been implemented:
- ASRock Z77 Extreme4
- ASUS PRIME H610I-PLUS D4
- Lenovo ThinkPad: T470s, T580
- Siemens MC EHL: MC EHL6
- Star Labs Starfighter: Arrow Lake (285H)
- Topton ADL: TWL (X2E_N150)
- 6 boards used in various devices with Chrome OS or on servers Google.
- Preliminary support for SoC AMD Turin has been added.
- In the SMMSTORE driver, the default storage size has been increased from 256KB to 512KB, allowing more space for UEFI variables and data stored in SMM-protected areas of non-volatile memory. Many Coreboot platforms have been transitioned to using 512KB SMM storage. The SMMSTORE driver uses the SMM (System Management Mode) to write, read, and clear areas on flash memory and can be utilized in OS or firmware components for persistent storage of settings.
- Support for the CFR (Coreboot Forms Representation) configuration framework has been added, providing a unified API for modifying firmware settings, such as those related to enabling iGPU, selecting touchpad/touchscreen, controlling coolers, and other hardware capabilities. The CFR mechanism has been implemented for over 40 Google motherboards and allows firmware behavior to be changed without recompilation and re-flashing. The framework integrates with the UEFI variable storage and other backends for non-volatile memory.
- Support for SoC Qualcomm X1P42100 has been significantly expanded, and debug capabilities for this platform have improved. The ability to load ramdump images and apply APDP (Application Processor Debug Policy) during debugging has been added. The display subsystem MDSS (Mobile Display Subsystem) has been enhanced, support for the Lucidole PLL API has been included, and correct DRAM reservation has been ensured.
- On Intel platforms, support for cameras with the MIPI (Mobile Industry Processor Interface) interface has been improved. This interface is used in many new laptop models instead of the previously utilized video streaming via USB from devices supporting the UVC (USB Video Class) standard. MIPI allows access to the camera sensor using the CSI (Camera Serial Interface) receiver and an integrated image processing unit (ISP), which provides image formation based on the raw data received from the sensor. The new version has expanded support for SSDB (Sensor Static Data Block) and ensured the generation of PLD (Physical Location Descriptor) information for camera sensors.
- The AMD Glinda platform implementation has added support for the SoC Faegan, 10-gigabit Ethernet controllers, and the use of USB4 FSP UPD (Firmware Support Package User Product Data) settings from DeviceTree. The capabilities available through ACPI have been expanded.
- For the Intel Panther Lake platforms, support has been implemented for the detection and configuration of LPCAMM (Low Power Compression Attached Memory Module) memory modules.
- The display subsystem support for MediaTek SoC has been redesigned.
- To accelerate boot times, the calculation of MTRR (Memory type range registers) for AMD chips has been simplified.
- The initialization of the ACPI FACS (Firmware ACPI Control Structure) table has been improved.
- Brightness control capabilities on systems with Intel GMA have been enhanced.
- An API for determining the size of physical memory has been added to Libpayload, along with support for the LZ4 compression algorithm.
- The driver for touchscreen controllers on Intel platforms has been improved.
- Support for USB Type-C has been added for Qualcomm chips.
- SoundWire drivers for Cirrus Logic CS35L56 and CS42L43 codecs have been added.
- ACPI support on RISC-V systems has been expanded.
- Versions of binutils 2.45 and ACPICA 20250807 have been updated. The nds32le-elf toolchain has been excluded from the default offerings.
Source: opennet.ru
