128 lines
5.5 KiB
Markdown
128 lines
5.5 KiB
Markdown
% Libreboot 20220710 released!
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% Leah Rowe
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% 10 July 2022
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Free your BIOS today!
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=====================
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Libreboot is [free](https://writefreesoftware.org/) (as in freedom) boot
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firmware, which initializes the hardware
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(e.g. memory controller, CPU, peripherals) in your computer so that software
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can run. Libreboot then starts a bootloader to load your operating system. It
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replaces the proprietary BIOS/UEFI firmware typically found on a computer.
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Libreboot is compatible with specifical computer models that use the Intel/AMD
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x86 architecture. Libreboot works well with Linux and BSD operating systems.
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The last Libreboot release, version 20211122, was released on November 22nd
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in 2021. *This* new release, Libreboot 20220710, is released today on July
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10th, 2022. This is intended to be a *stable* release, with some caveats.
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This is a *bug fix* release, relative to 20211122. No new boards or major
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features have been added, but several problems that existed in the previous
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release have now been fixed.
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Build from source
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-----------------
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*This* release was build-tested on Debian 11. Your mileage may vary, with
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other distros.
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Work done since the 20211122 release:
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-------------------------------------
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* Lots and lots of improvements to the documentation. Previous 2021 testing
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releases did not include snapshots of the documentation (which is actually
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the Markdown source files for the website), but this release *does* include
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now a snapshot of the current Libreboot documentation, as per the time of
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release.
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* grub.cfg: Many performance improvements, improving the boot speeds
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when using the GRUB payload (courtesy Ferass 'Vitali64' EL HAFIDI with
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additional improvements made by Leah Rowe)
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* GM45/ICH9M laptops: Disable PECI in coreboot, to work around a microcode bug
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causing SpeedStep (and possibly other CPU features) to fail.
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* Do not treat warnings as errors when building flashprog (fixes building on
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newer versions of GCC).
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* Macbook2,1: 16MB configurations now available (you must first upgrade the
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SPI flash)
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* Build system improvement: automated scripts for modifying coreboot configs.
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* Disable (by default) serial output on all boards, to prevent boot speed
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issues.
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* grub.cfg: Actually enable USB keyboards, explicitly (works around bug seen
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on some laptops, when using the GRUB payload).
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* Coreboot configs: Do not enable wifi during early init (security liability)
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* Preliminary u-boot integration; not used in any boards yet, but future
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full integration is planned, for several ARM platforms. U-boot is not
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included in the release archives, but logic does exist in the build system.
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Courtesy of Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli.
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* Scripts in lbmk: improved help output, courtesy of Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli.
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* scripts: process git versions when lbmk is a worktree or submodule. Courtesy
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John Doe (cool guy)
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* Updated to newer flashprog, in the build system
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* Perform silentoldconfig in seabios before full make. This fixes a race
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condition when rebuilding SeaBIOS with a high CPU count, resulting in failure
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with the error message (fix courtesy of John Doe):
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cc1: fatal error: can't open 'out/src/asm-offsets.s' for writing: No such file or directory
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* lbmk: Specifically call python3, when python3 is to be used instead of 2.
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* lbmk: Preliminary fix for git credentials check. Set a placeholder name/email
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if one is not set.
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Caveats
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-------
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Due to reported issues by users, these boards do not have ROM images
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available in the Libreboot 20220710 release:
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* KGPE-D16 ROM images not included
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* ditto KCMA-D8
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* ditto GA-G41M-ES2L
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The boards listed above can still be compiled, from the source code archive
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in this release and from the Libreboot git repository; additionally, ROM images
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are provided for these in the previous release. D8/D16 continue to have raminit
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issues; for now, use the 2021 releases. The next Libreboot release will
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merge newer patches that are available for this board, improving raminit
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reliability (among other things); that new release will, when available, have
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D16 ROMs included.
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All other boards are reasonably stable, and shouldn't provide any issues (no
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major issues reported, and/or non-blocking issues only).
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Planned future work
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===================
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In general, you should also check the issue tracker to find other notes.
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There is always more work to do, to improve Libreboot.
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Support for non-x86 platforms
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-----------------------------
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This is still on hold, but will be done as part of a future release.
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The coreboot firmware does support other platforms.
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Linux distro in flash
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---------------------
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This is another project that has been on hold for a while. The issue
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has been that I need a decent userland project. I've looked at many
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different userlands and recently (as of late June) decided to make
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my own. I want a BusyBox-like solution, but based on code from OpenBSD,
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ported to run under Linux with musl libc.
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I want this distro to provide a kexec bootloader in flash, similar to Heads,
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and I also want it to use apk-tools, pointing at Alpine Linux repositories
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so as to allow any number of packages to be downloaded. It could also provide
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lots of utils in general, to be a live *rescue system* of sorts. Linux system
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in flash, that can bootstrap other systems.
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Re-factor and optimize GRUB
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---------------------------
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GRUB is full of unused bloat that almost nobody uses, yet is in the current
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Libreboot builds. It's been on TODO for some time, but work has not yet
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begun on this project. My efforts are currently focused on the Linux distro.
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What I want is a fork of GRUB, optimized to run on bare metal as a coreboot
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payload, on x86 and ARM platforms.
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