Libreboot 20230319 Released | Hacker News Reader

Libreboot 20230319 Released

libreboot.org

145 pointsleahlibre24 comments

Whenever I see news about libreboot the first thing that happens in my brain is that I somehow associate it with a library that handles rebooting. Takes a few seconds every time to, well, reboot my thoughts.

> library that handles rebooting

I know that one from somewhere, I think it is used heavily throughout Windows update.

Actually, Windows (Update) is quite capable of hotpatching in-memory code. That why you can find two "mov eax, eax" instructions at the start of some functions. They allow hotpatching a long jmp there.

I shed a tear that it's not mandatory on most motherboards.

I'm never going to unsee this now, curse you!

Any release of Libreboot is a good release! Mind you any free/libre software is good software. ;)

While I am still a tiny little bit on edge about the changes to the project in terms of use of binary blobs - it is better to be going this path than to merely be theoretically free.

The old Core 2 Duo Thinkpad laptops are a dwindling supply. That said I still love mine dearly and it is my daily runner. I purchase a T400 from Leah about 5 years ago and it is still going strong!

What's the difference between libreboot versus coreboot?

I had the same question. It appears that libreboot is a downstream of coreboot.

https://libreboot.org/#how-does-libreboot-differ-from-regula...

Libreboot use to be coreboot without non-free binary blobs, but recently they decided to include them

So one might argue they are not libre anymore, more like "open"boot

As it has been increasingly difficult to find hardware supporting open-source firmware. And run a machine where you have access to all source for firmware, OS, drivers, software

The official documentation seems to be remarkably unhelpful. My guess is that libreboot now considers ME and microcode acceptable but not FSP. So this brings things up to Haswell. Previously, they were stuck on Nehalem.

It seems there are still only very few desktop and laptop motherboards which are supported. Which may not be the project developers' fault, but it can still only be used by rather few people. :-(

So how does this differ from making your own unified kernel image, ie a self-contained EFI boot file made from dracut or other? And does it work better with Secure Boot?

Libreboot is a libre firmware replacement, not a bootloader. I doubt you’ll get Secure Boot with it.

You can absolutely secure your boot with libreboot.

I am very much happy to see that this project is alive again and regularly releasing updates. Amazing job Leah Rowe :)

Nice usage of calver :)

Dunno, seems like a great demonstration of a weakness: “This is marked as a testing release.” That used to be information the version number contained, now you have to find the small print that happens to mention it on the release notes.

It seems that all of their recent releases are either testing releases ([1] [2]), or bug fix releases relative to testing releases ([3]), or bug fix releases relative to bug fix releases relative to testing releases ([4]).

[1] https://libreboot.org/news/libreboot20210522.html

[2] https://libreboot.org/news/libreboot20221214.html

[3] https://libreboot.org/news/libreboot20211122.html

[4] https://libreboot.org/news/libreboot20220710.html

The question is, why should I bother, as a regular user? What will libreboot improve on my x86_64 PC if all I need is the ability to boot into my preferred operating system and I don’t care about “freedom”, considering the machine already contains stuff like Intel ME that libreboot can’t disable?

Obviously if you don't care about software freedom, libreboot is not for you. That does not detract from the goals of the project.

Hardware whitelist removal on laptops. I think you can also put a small alpine image in your flash to boot from.

If you recognize Intel ME as a problem - so if the general firmware on the motherboard which libreboot replaces. One of two (?) steps towards only running code on our computers which we can see and analyze; or at least, that knowledgeable people can analyze.

x86 is not the only architecture supported by coreboot/libreboot.

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