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% Libreboot 20231101 released! % Leah Rowe % 1 November 2023

IMPORTANT ADVICE: PLEASE READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE INSTALLING/UPDATING LIBREBOOT.

Introduction

This new release, Libreboot 20231101, released today 1 November 2023, is a new testing release of Libreboot. The previous release was Libreboot 20231021, released on 21 October 2023.

Libreboot provides boot firmware for supported x86/ARM machines, starting a bootloader that then loads your operating system. It replaces proprietary BIOS/UEFI firmware on x86 machines, and provides an improved configuration on ARM-based chromebooks supported (U-Boot bootloader, instead of Google's depthcharge bootloader). On x86 machines, the GRUB and SeaBIOS coreboot payloads are officially supported, provided in varying configurations per machine. It provides an automated build system for the configuration and installation of coreboot ROM images, making coreboot easier to use for non-technical people. You can find the list of supported hardware in Libreboot documentation.

Libreboot's main benefit is higher boot speed, better security and more customisation options compared to most proprietary firmware. As a libre software project, the code can be audited, and coreboot does regularly audit code. The other main benefit is freedom to study, adapt and share the code, a freedom denied by most boot firmware, but not Libreboot! Booting Linux/BSD is also well supported.

Work done since last release

ThinkPad X201 support added

UPDATE: SUPPORT WAS REMOVED on 12 January 2024, because it was found that fans fail when using a neutered ME, on this platform - this bug only affects the older arrandales like X201, but newer platforms are not affected.

Intel D945GCLF was also re-added, in this release.

Coreboot, GRUB, U-Boot and SeaBIOS revisions

Libreboot 20231021 and 20231101 are both based on these revisions:

  • Coreboot (default): commit ID d862695f5f432b5c78dada5f16c293a4c3f9fce6, 12 October 2023
  • Coreboot (cros): MERGED WITH coreboot/default (see above)
  • Coreboot (fam15h_udimm): commit ID 1c13f8d85c7306213cd525308ee8973e5663a3f8, 16 June 2021
  • GRUB: commit ID e58b870ff926415e23fc386af41ff81b2f588763, 3 October 2023
  • SeaBIOS: commit ID 1e1da7a963007d03a4e0e9a9e0ff17990bb1608d, 24 August 2023
  • U-Boot: commit ID 4459ed60cb1e0562bc5b40405e2b4b9bbf766d57, 2 October 2023

However, Libreboot 20231101 has added several new patches on top of several of these, that fix certain bugs or improve certain functionalities. More information is available elsewhere in this page.

Build system tweaks

These changes were made:

  • i945 bootblock copy: during ROM building, the bootblock must be copied from the main 64KB block, to the backup block, for use with bucts, but this wasn't done in the last release; this regression has now been fixed.
  • Re-add SeaGRUB support - enabled on Dell Latitude E6400 and Dell Precision T1650. This is useful in cases where a VGA BIOS might be used. In that case, start SeaBIOS payload first but only ever load GRUB and disable the SeaBIOS menu. This is available in ROM images with _grubonly in the file name. This is user-equivalent to running GRUB as first payload, because SeaBIOS will never allow user input, only switching instead to GRUB. GRUB offers many security features like password locks and GPG checking.
  • Export LC_COLLATE and LC_ALL, setting it to C, to ensure consistent sorting; the Libreboot build system heavily relies on sorting by alphanumerical order with numbers and capital letters first, e.g. when applying patches.
  • GRUB config: Re-wrote the text on some entries to make them easier to understand for novice users.
  • Add HECI timeout for Ibex Peak, courtesy of a patch written by Denis GNUtoo Carikli in 2017 - on neutered ME setups (using me_cleaner), the coreboot code checking HECI can cause a hang, so a timeout is introduced.
  • Crank up VRAM to max settings on all boards with Intel graphics (shared system memory) - e.g. some ivybridge boards had it set to 32MB, now it's 224MB.
  • GRUB: Don't spew the "Unknown key" message on unknown/invalid key presses - otherwise, a faulty keyboard with stuck keys will make the message spew repeatedly, making GRUB unusable.
  • Fix S3 suspend/resume on Sandybridge/Ivybridge/Haswell Intel platforms, by disabling TSEG Stage Cache in coreboot configs.
  • Revert a heapsize patch in coreboot that broke S3 suspend/resume in some boards - though we still needed to make another tweak. See above.
  • Dell Latitude E6400 and E6430: fixed keyboard initialisation in GRUB. GRUB was using scancode set 2 without translation. The EC on these Dell laptops allows to set the scancodes and reports back what you set, but only ever actually uses scancode set 1 (XT) - so, the fix makes GRUB always use set 2 with translation (treated as 1). This is the same behaviour used in SeaBIOS. This fixes E6400/E6430 GRUB, and doesn't break other boards as per testing.
  • Fix coldboot on Dell Latitude E6400, courtesy of a patch by Angel Pons (IRC inick hell on coreboot IRC) - previously, this machine booted unreliably, though reboot was fine. Angel wrote a patch for another board, that also works on the E6400 quite nicely.
  • Copy base ROM a second time in build/roms - fixes U-Boot building for x86 QEMU which also has GRUB and SeaBIOS support.
  • U-Boot x86 (QEMU): builds again, so re-added
  • QEMU ARM64: video console now enabled in U-Boot (courtesy Alper Nebi Yasak)
  • Dependencies scripts: updated a few of them, for newer versions of distros.

FULL list of changes (git log)

The log is as follows, relative to Libreboot 20231021:

* 82bd87fa build/roms: re-add SeaGRUB build support 
* 971f6517 add 512kb d945gclf config 
* dfc5423c export LC_COLLATE=C and LC_ALL=C 
* f9993495 d945gclf: add noblobs/nomicrocode label 
* ed27ab8a grub.cfg: use better description in menu entries 
*   2c7f83bc Merge pull request 'add intel d945gclf_8mb support based on previous libreboot configs' (#144) from fbraghiroli/lbmk:master into master 
|\  
| * 00dd3e4a add intel d945gclf_8mb support based on previous libreboot configs 
* | 65675a20 build/roms: properly print noblobs rom names 
* | 42fde8e5 update/release: insert fake x201 me.bin 
* | 1306c9d2 Revert "coreboot/default: use alternative heap size fix" 
* | d218088d coreboot/all: disable TSEG stage cache 
* | 91faeb8d crank up vram allocation on more intel boards 
* | 026d57ff GRUB: don't spew "Unknown key 0xff" in error 
* | 29e9c32e coreboot/default: use alternative heap size fix 
* | 9606c68c fix grub keyboard init on dell e6400 and e6430 
|/  
* 34f56853 fix raminit/coldboot on dell e6400 
* 27efbc6f add heci timeout for ibex peak 
* 7e6fd7e5 add lenovo x201 support 
* 93458de7 revert coreboot heap size patch 
* 83bf2376 coreboot/fam15h: don't set microcode_required 
* 5f6ba01d include/option.sh: fix i945 bootblock copy 
* df031d42 use mirrorservice.org for acpica downloads 
* 85bc9156 build/roms: copy base rom again for u-boot 
*   f1785c3f Merge pull request 'u-boot: Add qemu_x86_12mb build again' (#143) from alpernebbi/lbmk:uboot-qemu-x86 into master 
|\  
| * 03c830b2 u-boot: Add qemu_x86_12mb build again 
* |   b353b0c7 Merge pull request 'u-boot: qemu_arm64_12mb: Enable video console' (#142) from alpernebbi/lbmk:uboot-qemu-arm64-video into master 
|\ \  
| |/  
|/|   
| * 444f2899 u-boot: qemu_arm64_12mb: Enable video console 
|/  
* 280bcceb Merge pull request 'arch, fedora38, parabola, void: install python-setuptools' (#141) from Riku_V/lbmk:master into master 
* 3b92ac97 arch, fedora38, parabola, void: install python-setuptools

This is much more conservative than the previous release, because not much time has passed since then. The focus of this Libreboot 20231101 release has been to fix bugs.

Hardware supported in this release

All of the following are believed to boot, but if you have any issues, please contact the Libreboot project. They are:

Servers (AMD, x86)

Desktops (AMD, Intel, x86)

Laptops (Intel, x86)

Laptops (ARM, with U-Boot payload)

Downloads

You can find this release on the downloads page. At the time of this announcement, some of the rsync mirrors may not have it yet, so please check another one if your favourite one doesn't have it.

Post-release errata

S3 suspend/resume

The previous release broke suspend/resume on all Intel platforms, but it's fixed in this release on Sandybridge (e.g. ThinkPad X220), Ivybridge (e.g. ThinkPad X230, Dell Precision T1650) and Haswell (e.g. ThinkPad T440p, W541).

However, GM45 (e.g. ThinkPad X200 / T400) is still confirmed broken - though it may work for some. S3 suspend/resume has always been flaky on GM45.

i945 testing is inconclusive. (e.g. ThinkPad X60, T60)

x4x (e.g. GA-G41M-ES2L) remains untested.

Pineview (D945GCLF) is untested for S3.

The AMD boards should work fine with suspend.