Lia Rowe, the main developer and founder of the Libreboot distribution, has announced a new project called Canoeboot. Positioned as a completely free version of Libreboot, Canoeboot adheres to the rigorous standards of the SPI Foundation. Previously known as the “unofficial GNU Boot,” the project underwent two name changes due to legal claims from the creators of GNU Boot before settling on its final name, Canoeboot.
The latest release of Canoeboot, canoeboot 20231026, is based on the recent version of Libreboot, Libreboot 20231021. However, Canoeboot differs in that it excludes all components and changes that do not meet the requirements of the SPI Foundation. This decision was necessary to comply with the SPI Foundation’s prohibition on including binary firmware and driver components in free distributions. Previously, Libreboot had become less strict in these requirements to expand hardware support, causing it to lose its status as a “completely free” distribution.
Canoeboot supports a wide range of devices, from server motherboards such as ASUS KFSN4-Dre and ASUS KGPE-D16 to popular laptops like Lenovo ThinkPad and Apple MacBook models. However, some models supported in Libreboot are not available in Canoeboot.
During the development of Canoeboot, numerous changes and improvements were made, including:
- Transition to the GRUB 2.12-RC bootloader
- Added support for encrypted sections of LUKS2
- Simplified assembly system LBMK
- Restructured catalog for more convenient resource management
- Expanded firmware support for various microcontrollers
- Updated U-boil bootloader to version 2023.10
- Synchronized with current versions of Coreboot repository and relevant versions of Seabios
Canoeboot addresses the demand for a completely free version of Libreboot that meets the standards set by the SPI Foundation. It is expected to attract individuals who value software freedom and prefer a distribution that does not contain closed components.