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| title | x-toc-enable |
|---|---|
| Libreboot project | true |
You have rights. The right to privacy, freedom of thought, freedom of speech
and the right to read. Free
software gives you these rights.
Your freedom matters.
Right to repair matters.
Many people use proprietary
boot firmware, even if they use GNU+Linux.
Non-free firmware often contains backdoors,
and can be buggy. The libreboot project was founded in in December 2013, with the
express purpose of making Free Software accessible for non-technical users at
the firmware level. It's true that libreboot can be called Open Source, but you
should call it Free
Software.
The libreboot project uses coreboot for hardware
initialization.
Coreboot is notoriously difficult to install for most non-technical users; it
handles only basic initialization and jumps to a separate
payload program (e.g.
GRUB,
Tianocore), which must also be configured.
The libreboot software solves this problem; it is a coreboot distribution with
an automated build system that builds complete ROM images, for
more robust installation. Documentation is provided.
How does libreboot differ from regular coreboot?
In the same way that Debian is a GNU+Linux distribution, libreboot is
a coreboot distribution. If you want to build a ROM image from scratch, you
otherwise have to perform expert-level configuration of coreboot, GRUB and
whatever other software you need, to prepare the ROM image. With libreboot,
you can literally download from Git or a source archive, and run make, and it
will build entire ROM images. An automated build system, named lbmk
(Libreboot MaKe), builds these ROM images automatically, without any user input
or intervention required. Configuration has already been performed in advance.
If you were to build regular coreboot, without using libreboot's automated build system, it would require a lot more intervention and decent technical knowledge to produce a working configuration.
Regular binary releases of libreboot provide these
ROM images pre-compiled, and you can simply install them, with no special
knowledge or skill except the ability to
follow simplified instructions, written for non-technical
users.
How to help
You can check bugs listed on the bug tracker.
If you spot a bug and have a fix, here are instructions for how to send patches, and you can also report it. Also, this entire website is written in Markdown and hosted in a separate repository where you can send patches.
Any and all development discussion and user support are all done on the IRC channel. More information is on the contact page.