The release of the free boot firmware Libreboot 20231021 has been announced. The update has been assigned the status of a test release (stable releases are published approximately once a year, with the last stable release in June). The project develops a ready-made build of the coreboot project, providing a replacement for proprietary UEFI and BIOS firmware responsible for the initialization of CPUs, memory, peripheral devices, and other hardware components, while minimizing binary insertions.
Libreboot aims to create a system environment that can operate without proprietary software as much as possible, not only at the operating system level but also in the firmware that handles booting. Libreboot complements Coreboot with tools that simplify the process for end-users, forming a ready-to-use distribution that any user without special skills can utilize.
Hardware supported by Libreboot:
- Server motherboards:
- ASUS KFSN4-DRE
- ASUS KGPE-D16
- Desktop systems:
- Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2L;
- Acer G43T-AM3;
- Intel D510MO / D410PT;
- Apple iMac 5,2;
- HP Elite 8200 SFF/MT;
- HP Elite 8300 USDT;
- ASUS KCMA-D8;
- Dell Precision T1650.
- Laptops:
- ThinkPad X60 / X60S / X60 Tablet;
- ThinkPad T60;
- Lenovo ThinkPad X200 / X200S / X200 / X220 / X230 Tablet;
- Lenovo ThinkPad X301;
- Lenovo ThinkPad R400;
- Lenovo ThinkPad T400 / T400S / T420 / T420S / T430 / T440;
- Lenovo ThinkPad T500 / T530;
- Lenovo ThinkPad W530 / W541;
- Lenovo ThinkPad R500;
- HP EliteBook 2560p / 2570p / 2170p / 8470p / Folio 9470m;
- Dell Latitude E6400 / E6430;
- Apple MacBook1 and MacBook2;
- ASUS Chromebook Flip C101 (ARM);
- Samsung Chromebook Plus (ARM).
In the new release:
- Support has been restored for server motherboards: ASUS KFSN4-DRE and ASUS KGPE-D16.
- Support has been added for PC motherboards: ASUS KCMA-D8 and Dell Precision T1650.
- Support has been added for laptops: Dell Latitude E6430 (Intel GPU), Lenovo ThinkPad X301, HP EliteBook 2170p, and HP EliteBook 8470p.
- The transition to the under-development branch of the GRUB bootloader 2.12-rc has been completed. Support has been added for encrypted partitions in the LUKS2 format, utilizing a key formation mechanism based on the argon2 algorithm (previously, only configurations with PBKDF2 were supported).
- Commands for the lbmk build tool (Libreboot build system) have been simplified; for instance, instead of './build boot roms', you can now specify './build roms'. The number of build scripts has been reduced from 50 to 12. Two audits of the lbmk build system have been conducted, resulting in a 50% reduction in code size and improved performance.
- Directory restructuring has been carried out. The contents of the directory 'resources/scripts/' have been moved to a separate directory 'script/', and the 'resources/' directory has been renamed to 'config/', as it now only contains configuration files and patches (patches are planned to be moved to a 'patch/' directory). IFD/GbE files have been moved to the 'config/ifd/' directory. Manufacturer-specific binary files have been separated from IFD/GbE files and placed in the 'vendorfiles/' directory.
- Support for building serprog firmware for RP2040 (pico-serprog) and STM32 (stm32-vserprog) based boards has been added. The serprog protocol is supported in flashrom and is used for flashing SPI flash.
- The U-Boot bootloader used in Chromebook firmware has been updated to version 2023.10.
- Synchronization with the Coreboot repository has been completed as of October 12, and with the SeaBIOS repository as of August 24.
Source: opennet.ru
