The release of the free boot firmware Libreboot 20240504 has been announced, which has attained stable version status (the last stable release was published in June 2023). The project develops a ready-made build of the Coreboot project, providing a replacement for proprietary UEFI and BIOS firmware responsible for initializing the CPU, memory, peripherals, and other hardware components, minimizing binary inserts.
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.
The new release adds support for the Dell Latitude E5420 laptop and resolves S3 sleep mode wake issues for other supported Dell Latitude laptops. For HP EliteBook 8560w laptops, WiFi issues have been addressed. Efforts have been made to enhance stability and fix bugs for previously supported boards. Changes accumulated over the year in the Libreboot testing branches have been included.
The GRUB bootloader has been updated to version 2.12 and extended with patches to support USB 3.0 and to use argon2 hashes when generating keys for encrypted LUKS2 partitions (instead of PBKDF2). SeaBIOS now supports booting from NVMe SSD drives. Optimizations aimed at reducing code size have been made in the build system. The flashprog tool is now used to flash Libreboot images to motherboards instead of the flashrom utility.
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.
- Intel D945GCLF
- Dell OptiPlex 7020 and 9020 series SFF, XE2 SFF, MT, and XE2 MT;
- Laptops:
- ThinkPad X60 / X60S / X60 Tablet;
- ThinkPad T60;
- Lenovo ThinkPad X200 / X200S / X200 / X220 / X220 eDP / 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;
- HP EliteBook 820 G2;
- HP Compaq Elite 8300 CMT;
- HP EliteBook 8460p;
- HP EliteBook 8560w;
- Dell Latitude E6400 / E6430;
- Dell Latitude E5420/E5520/E5530/E6520/E6530/E6420;
- Apple MacBook1 and MacBook2;
- ASUS Chromebook Flip C101 (ARM);
- Samsung Chromebook Plus (ARM).
In addition to Libreboot, a release of the Canoeboot 20240504 project has been formed, which is positioned as a fully free build of Libreboot, meeting the criteria of the Free Software Foundation for completely free distributions. The Canoeboot release is based on Libreboot 20240504 from which components and modifications not meeting the Free Software Foundation's criteria have been removed.
The need to create a separate build of Libreboot arises from the Free Software Foundation's established requirements for free distributions, which do not allow the delivery of binary firmware or any binary driver components. Starting from 2022, the Libreboot project has adopted more pragmatic rules for the usage of binary components, significantly expanding the range of supported hardware. The new goal of the Libreboot project is to support all hardware supported in coreboot, excluding binary components that impact security and reliability (for instance, Libreboot uses me_cleaner to disable Intel ME). With this approach, Libreboot lost its status as a fully free distribution from the perspective of the Free Software Foundation.
Devices supported in Canoeboot:
- Server motherboards:
- ASUS KFSN4-DRE
- ASUS KGPE-D16
- Desktop systems:
- Acer G43T-AM3
- Apple iMac 5,2
- ASUS KCMA-D8
- Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2L
- Intel D510MO and D410PT
- Intel D945GCLF
- Laptops:
- Apple MacBook1,1 and MacBook2,1
- Dell Latitude E6400, E6400 XFR, and E6400 ATG with Intel GPU
- Lenovo ThinkPad R400
- Lenovo ThinkPad R500
- Lenovo ThinkPad T400/T400S
- Lenovo ThinkPad T500
- Lenovo ThinkPad W500
- Lenovo ThinkPad X200/X200S/X200 Tablet
- Lenovo ThinkPad X301
- Lenovo ThinkPad X60/X60S/X60 Tablet
- ASUS Chromebook Flip C101 (ARM)
- Samsung Chromebook Plus (v1) (ARM)
Source: opennet.ru
