After seven months of development, Libreboot free bootable firmware release 20220710 has been published. This is the fourth release in the GNU project, and is touted as the first stable release (past releases were marked as test releases, as they required additional stabilization and testing). Libreboot develops a completely free fork from the CoreBoot project, providing a binary-free replacement for proprietary UEFI and BIOS firmware responsible for initializing the CPU, memory, peripherals, and other hardware components.
Libreboot aims to create a system environment that completely dispenses with proprietary software, not only at the level of the operating system, but also the firmware that provides booting. Libreboot not only cleans CoreBoot of non-free components, but also adds tools to make it easier for end users to use, creating a distribution that can be used by any user with no special skills.
Among the supported hardware in Libreboot:
- Desktop systems Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2L, Intel D510MO, Intel D410PT, Intel D945GCLF and Apple iMac 5,2.
- Servers and workstations: ASUS KCMA-D8, ASUS KGPE-D16, ASUS KFSN4-DRE.
- Notebooks: ThinkPad X60/X60S/X60 Tablet, ThinkPad T60, Lenovo ThinkPad X200/X200S/X200 Tablet, Lenovo ThinkPad R400, Lenovo ThinkPad T400/T400S, Lenovo ThinkPad T500, Lenovo ThinkPad W500, Lenovo ThinkPad R500, Apple MacBook1,1 and MacBook2,1 ,XNUMX.
It is noted that the main attention in the preparation of the new version was given to fixing the problems observed in the previous release. Significant changes and support for new boards in version 20220710 are not proposed, but some improvements are noted:
- Significantly improved documentation.
- Performance optimizations have been made to speed up loading when using a payload environment based on GNU GRUB.
- Notebooks with GM45/ICH9M chipset have PECI disabled in coreboot to work around a bug in microcode.
- Extended 2MB builds have been generated for Macbook1 and Macbook16.
- The build system has been improved to include scripts for automatically modifying coreboot configuration files.
- Serial output is disabled for all boards by default, which solved problems with boot slowdowns.
- Implemented preliminary support for integration with the u-boot bootloader, which is not yet used in assemblies for boards, but in the future it will allow you to start generating assemblies for ARM platforms.
Source: opennet.ru