Libreboot 20221214
libreboot.org
libreboot.org
This paragraph goes from YMD to DMY to MDY... I don't see why hyphenating the date from the release version wasn't good enough.
Also they stopped supporting the most capable boards Asus KGPE and KCMA
There are these guys that made some updates to coreboot https://docs.dasharo.com/variants/asus_kgpe_d16/releases/
>New boards, x86
>ASUS p2b_ls/p3b_f
Came out 1998 and 1999
>lenovo/t430
2012
>lenovo/x230 / lenovo/x230edp
2012
>lenovo/t440p
2013
>lenovo/w541
2015
>lenovo/x220
2011
>lenovo/t420
2011
Libreboot differs in that it refuses to include things such as CPU microcode. Because the FSF has an absolutely asinine definition of "free software" wherein any code that can be modified or updated is non-free, but if it comes from an untouchable ROM chip they can pretend it's still "free"
If it does, then it is hardware.
>they can pretend it's still "free"
Or rather, not software, thus out of scope.
So mask ROM or OTP ROM are okay, but EPROM/EEPROM/flash are not?
(1) like manufacturers tweaking details to fall under the desired definition, legal arguments about the definitions, etc...
They've always called themselves a "Coreboot distro", not a fork. From the homepage: "In the same way that Debian is a GNU+Linux distribution, libreboot is a coreboot distribution."[0]
That was a lot bigger deal when libreboot first started, because at the time Coreboot wasn't doing their own releases, so doing release engineering and such around Coreboot was a lot more of a value-add.
> Libreboot … refuses to include things such as CPU microcode.
That is false since the libreboot+osboot merger. Osboot was a fork of libreboot that had a more lax binary blob policy; they merged back together last month[1], taking osboot's more lax policy[2], which does block out some binary blobs from upstream Coreboot, but allows important blobs such as CPU microcode.
> Because the FSF
I'd be hesitant to say that libreboot does anything because of the FSF; libreboot and the FSF have had a... tumultuous relationship, for both technical/policy reasons, and personal reasons. Libreboot's policy page[2] has a big section about disagreements with the FSF's policy. It's more fair to say that libreboot does things because of Leah Rowe's position on things, which will tend to align with the position of FSF supporters, but not necessarily.
Distributions can still offer value through release engineering steps that coreboot skips: https://doc.coreboot.org/releases/checklist.html#purpose-of-... says about releases: "Our releases aren’t primarily a vehicle for code that is stable across all boards ... Instead, the releases are regular breakpoints ..."
Stable libreboot releases, MrChromebox's releases (over at mrchromebox.tech), vendor releases (Chromebooks, System76, Purism, Starlabs, ...) and so on are useful because they provide more rigorous testing for the subset of devices they actively support.
Unless you're a developer and/or have tools to recover from a bad flash, these releases are more likely to get you a useful firmware image compared to coreboot.org releases.
(That doesn't mean we're not doing _any_ testing before releasing on coreboot.org, but it's somewhat stochastic: whatever the release team has tested themselves or got reports on is good, everything else is of unknown quality.)
That is gross misrepresentation of their position. It is more like if a project is claiming to be free software, then it should not have parts that are non-free software (like redistributing firmware). If the firmware is in hardware ROM or EEPROM chip (or just downloaded independently from third source), then then it is not part of such project and therefore out of scope (i.e. somebody else's problem).
Has anyone here used it? If so, how is/was it?
It's great. Things I like: faster boots than any stock BIOS I've ever encountered; being able to dive in to the source of what I'm running (I'm one of those FSF-type Free Software nutjobs); being able to do fancy things like LUKS encryption all the way down to the BIOS.
The LUKS encryption is a massive selling point to me. I've been considering getting an old X220 as a travel laptop and luckily that appears to be supported.