Libreboot 20211122 Rebases Against Newer Coreboot, Drops "Very Bloated" TianoCore

Written by Michael Larabel in Coreboot on 22 November 2021 at 06:39 PM EST. 12 Comments
COREBOOT
Libreboot 20211122 has been released as the downstream fork of Coreboot on providing fully free software boot firmware support.

Libreboot continues taking the more fully free software approach to system firmware than upstream Coreboot that will accept ports requiring binary blobs and other non-free software components. Libreboot also aims to be easier to setup/deploy than Coreboot.

With today's Libreboot update they have re-based against newer versions of Coreboot, SeaBIOS, and GRUB. Meanwhile they have dropped TianoCore from the build system. The developers feel TianoCore is "very bloated and buggy, and not worth maintaining." Instead of TianoCore they are aiming to ship a Busybox + Linux payload with the U-Root bootloader in future releases.

This Libreboot release also manages to provide 16MB build configurations for more boards, memtest86+ is now included on more ROMs by default, GRUB configuration improvements, and a variety of other enhancements.

More details on today's Libreboot update via Libreboot.org. The list of systems currently supported by Libreboot are outlined in the documentation. Currently supported are a few AMD/Intel x86 older motherboards, some older Apple iMac/MacBook computers, a few AMD Opteron era motherboards, and various older Lenovo ThinkPad models. Due to the stricter free software requirements, Libreboot supports less targets than upstream Coreboot.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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