Libreboot has announced the release of their free firmware, libreboot 20230413, which is a finished assembly of coreboot. Coreboot provides a replacement firmware for the proprietary BIOS and UEFI, which initializes the CPU, memory, peripheral devices, and other equipment components. Libreboot has removed non-free components from coreboot and provided means to simplify the use of end-users. The project aims to create a systemic environment that allows users to entirely avoid the use of proprietary software, including firmware that ensures loading.
Libreboot supports desktop systems, such as Gigabyte GA-G41M-SE2L, Intel D510MO, Intel D410pt, Intel D945GCLF, and Apple IMAC 5.2. It also supports laptops, such as Lenovo ThinkPad X60/X60S/X60 Tablet, ThinkPad T60, Lenovo ThinkPad X200/X200S/X200 Tablet/X220/X230, Lenovo ThinkPad R400, Lenovo ThinkPad T400/T400S/T420/T420s/T430/T430s, ThinkPad W500/W530, Lenovo ThinkPad R500, Apple MacBook1 and MacBook2, as well as various Chromebook devices from ASUS, Samsung, Acer, and HP.
The latest release includes cleaned up code and improved error processing in the Util/NVMUTIL utility. It also simplifies the substitution of scripts in ROM-images for Sandybridge, Ivybridge, and Haswell. The supply of images with MRC.bin will resume for boards with processors based on Haswell microarchitecture. Additionally, an experimental implementation of the memory code (Raminit) is available for those boards, allowing users to avoid using a Memory Reference Code (MRC) file. Some problematic boards have been excluded from the assembly system, but the supply of ROM images for them will resume in future releases.
The next update is planned to assign the status of an official stable Libreboot release. Libreboot is empowering users to have complete control over their systems without relying on proprietary software.