coreboot 4.16 release coreboot's first quarterly release in a number of years, version 4.16 was tagged on February 25th, 2022. Since 4.15 there have been more than 1770 new commits by more than 170 developers. Of these, more than 35 contributed to coreboot for the first time. Welcome to the project! Thank you to all the developers who continue to make coreboot the great open source firmware project that it is. New mainboards: --------------- * Acer Aspire VN7-572G * AMD Chausie * ASROCK H77 Pro4-M * ASUS P8Z77-M * Emulation QEMU power9 * Google Agah * Google Anahera4ES * Google Banshee * Google Beadrix * Google Brya4ES * Google Crota * Google Dojo * Google Gimble4ES * Google Herobrine_Rev0 * Google Kingler * Google Kinox * Google Krabby * Google Moli * Google Nereid * Google Nivviks * Google Primus4ES * Google Redrix4ES * Google Skyrim * Google Taeko4ES * Google Taniks * Google Vell * Google Volmar * Intel Alderlake-N RVP * Prodrive Atlas * Star Labs Star Labs StarBook Mk V (i3-1115G4 and i7-1165G7) * System76 gaze16 3050 * System76 gaze16 3060 * System76 gaze16 3060-b Removed mainboards: ------------------- * Google -> Corsola * Google -> Nasher * Google -> Stryke Added processors: ----------------- * src/cpu/power9 * src/soc/amd/sabrina Submodule Updates ----------------- * /3rdparty/amd_blobs (6 commits) * /3rdparty/arm-trusted-firmware (965 commits) * /3rdparty/blobs (30 commits) * /3rdparty/chromeec (2212 commits) * /3rdparty/intel-microcode (1 commits) * /3rdparty/qc_blobs (13 commits) * /3rdparty/vboot (44 commits) Plans to move platform support to a branch: ------------------------------------------- After the 4.18 release in November 2022, we plan to move support for any boards still requiring RESOURCE_ALLOCATOR_V3 to the 4.18 branch. V4 was introduced more than a year ago and with minor changes most platforms were able to work just fine with it. A major difference is that V3 uses just one continuous region below 4G to allocate all PCI memory BAR's. V4 uses all available space below 4G and if asked to, also above 4G too. This makes it important that SoC code properly reports all fixed resources. Currently only AGESA platforms have issues with it. On Gerrit both attempts to fix AMD AGESA codebases to use V4 and compatibility modes inside the V4 allocator have been proposed, but both efforts seem stalled. See the (not yet merged) documentation CB:43603 [1] on it's details. It looks like properly reporting all fixed resources is the issue. At this point, we are not specifying which platforms this will include as there are a number of patches to fix these issues in flight. Hopefully, all platforms will end up being migrated to the v4 resource allocator so that none of the platforms need to be supported on the branch. Additionally, even if the support for the platform is moved to a branch, it can be brought back to ToT if they're fixed to support the v4 allocator. Plans for Code Deprecation -------------------------- As of release 4.18 (November 2022) we plan to deprecate LEGACY_SMP_INIT. This also includes the codepath for SMM_ASEG. This code is used to start APs and do some feature programming on each AP, but also set up SMM. This has largely been superseded by PARALLEL_MP, which should be able to cover all use cases of LEGACY_SMP_INIT, with little code changes. The reason for deprecation is that having 2 codepaths to do the virtually the same increases maintenance burden on the community a lot, while also being rather confusing. A few things are lacking in PARALLEL_MP init: - Support for !CONFIG_SMP on single core systems. It's likely easy to extend PARALLEL_MP or write some code that just does CPU detection on the BSP CPU. - Support SMM in the legacy ASEG (0xa0000 - 0xb0000) region. A POC showed that it's not that hard to do with PARALLEL_MP CB:58700 [2] No platforms in the tree have any hardware limitations that would block migrating to PARALLEL_MP / a simple !CONFIG_SMP codebase. Significant changes ------------------- This is, of course, not a complete list of all changes in the 4.16 coreboot release, but a sampling of some of the more interesting and significant changes. ### Option to disable Intel Management Engine Disable the Intel (Converged Security) Management Engine ((CS)ME) via HECI based on Intel Core processors from Skylake to Alder Lake. State is set based on a CMOS value of `me_state`. A value of `0` will result in a (CS)ME state of `0` (working) and value of `1` will result in a (CS)ME state of `3` (disabled). For an example CMOS layout and more info, see [cse.c](../../src/soc/intel/common/block/cse/cse.c). ### Add AMD apcb_v3_edit tool apcb_v3_edit.py tool edits APCB V3 binaries. Specifically it will inject up to 16 SPDs into an existing APCB. The APCB must have a magic number at the top of each SPD slot. ### Allow enable/disable ME via CMOS Add .enable method that will set the CSME state. The state is based on the new CMOS option me_state, with values of 0 and 1. The method is very stable when switching between different firmware platforms. This method should not be used in combination with USE_ME_CLEANER. State 1 will result in: ME: Current Working State : 4 ME: Current Operation State : 1 ME: Current Operation Mode : 3 ME: Error Code : 2 State 0 will result in: ME: Current Working State : 5 ME: Current Operation State : 1 ME: Current Operation Mode : 0 ME: Error Code : 0 ### Move LAPIC configuration to MP init Implementation for setup_lapic() did two things -- call enable_lapic() and virtual_wire_mode_init(). In PARALLEL_MP case enable_lapic() was redundant as it was already executed prior to initialize_cpu() call. For the !PARALLEL_MP case enable_lapic() is added to AP CPUs. ### Add ANSI escape sequences for highlighting Add ANSI escape sequences to highlight a log line based on its loglevel to the output of "interactive" consoles that are meant to be displayed on a terminal (e.g. UART). This should help make errors and warnings stand out better among the usual spew of debug messages. For users whose terminal or use case doesn't support these sequences for some reason (or who simply don't like them), they can be disabled with a Kconfig. While ANSI escape sequences can be used to add color, minicom (the presumably most common terminal emulator for UART endpoints?) doesn't support color output unless explicitly enabled (via -c command line flag), and other terminal emulators may have similar restrictions, so in an effort to make this as widely useful by default as possible I have chosen not to use color codes and implement this highlighting via bolding, underlining and inverting alone (which seem to go through in all cases). If desired, support for separate color highlighting could be added via Kconfig later. ### Add cbmem_dump_console This function is similar to cbmem_dump_console_to_uart except it uses the normally configured consoles. A console_paused flag was added to prevent the cbmem console from writing to itself. ### Add coreboot-configurator A simple GUI to change CMOS settings in coreboot's CBFS, via the nvramtool utility. Testing on Debian, Ubuntu and Manjaro with coreboot 4.14+, but should work with any distribution or coreboot release that has an option table. For more info, please check the README [3]. ### Update live ISO configs to NixOS 21.11 Update configs so that they work with NixOS 21.11. Drop `iasl` package since it was replaced with `acpica-tools`. ### Move to U-Boot v2021.10 Move to building the latest U-Boot. ### Support systems with >128 cores Each time the spinlock is acquired a byte is decreased and then the sign of the byte is checked. If there are more than 128 cores the sign check will overflow. An easy fix is to increase the word size of the spinlock acquiring and releasing. ### Add [samsung] sx9360 [proximity sensor] driver Add driver for setting up Semtech sx9360 SAR sensor. The driver is based on sx9310.c. The core of the driver is the same, but the bindings are slightly different. Registers are documented in the kernel tree. [4] Documentation/devicetree/bindings/iio/proximity/semtech,sx9360.yaml ### Add driver for Genesys Logic [SD Controller] GL9750 The device is a PCIe Gen1 to SD 3.0 card reader controller to be used in the Chromebook. The datasheet name is GL9750S and the revision is 01. The patch disables ASPM L0s. ### Add support for Realtek RT8125 The Realtek RT8168 and RT8125 have a similar programming interface, therefore add the PCI device ID for the RT8125 into driver for support. ### Add Fibocom 5G WWAN ACPI support Support PXSX._RST and PXSX.MRST._RST for warm and cold reset. PXSX._RST is invoked on driver removal. build dependency: soc/intel/common/block/pcie/rtd3 This driver will use the rtd3 methods for the same parent in the device tree. The rtd3 chip needs to be added on the same root port in the devicetree separately. ### Fix bug in vr_config The `cpu_get_power_max()` function returns the TDP in milliwatts, but the vr_config code interprets the value in watts. Divide the value by 1000 to fix this. This also fixes an integer overflow when `cpu_get_power_max()` returns a value greater than 65535 (UINT16_MAX). ### Make mixed topology work When using a mixed memory topology with DDR4, it's not possible to boot when no DIMMs are installed, even though memory-down is available. This happens because the DIMM SPD length defaults to 256 when no DIMM SPD is available. Relax the length check when no DIMMs are present to overcome this problem. ### Add FSP 2.3 support FSP 2.3 specification introduces following changes: 1. FSP_INFO_HEADER changes Updated SpecVersion from 0x22 to 0x23 Updated HeaderRevision from 5 to 6 Added ExtendedImageRevision FSP_INFO_HEADER length changed to 0x50 2. Added FSP_NON_VOLATILE_STORAGE_HOB2 Following changes are implemented in the patch to support FSP 2.3: - Add Kconfig option - Update FSP build binary version info based on ExtendedImageRevision field in header - New NV HOB related changes will be pushed as part of another patch ### Join hash calculation for verification and measurement This patch moves the CBFS file measurement when CONFIG_TPM_MEASURED_BOOT is enabled from the lookup step into the code where a file is actually loaded or mapped from flash. This has the advantage that CBFS routines which just look up a file to inspect its metadata (e.g. cbfs_get_size()) do not cause the file to be measured twice. It also removes the existing inefficiency that files are loaded twice when measurement is enabled (once to measure and then again when they are used). When CBFS verification is enabled and uses the same hash algorithm as the TPM, we are even able to only hash the file a single time and use the result for both purposes. ### Skip FSP Notify APIs Alder Lake SoC deselects Kconfigs as below: - USE_FSP_NOTIFY_PHASE_READY_TO_BOOT - USE_FSP_NOTIFY_PHASE_END_OF_FIRMWARE to skip FSP notify APIs (Ready to boot and End of Firmware) and make use of native coreboot driver to perform SoC recommended operations prior booting to payload/OS. Additionally, created a helper function `heci_finalize()` to keep HECI related operations separated for easy guarding again config. TODO: coreboot native implementation to skip FSP notify phase API (post pci enumeration) is still WIP. ### Add support for PCIe Resizable BARs Section 7.8.6 of the PCIe spec (rev 4) indicates that some devices can indicates support for "Resizable BARs" via a PCIe extended capability. When support this capability is indicated by the device, the size of each BAR is determined in a different way than the normal "moving bits" method. Instead, a pair of capability and control registers is allocated in config space for each BAR, which can be used to both indicate the different sizes the device is capable of supporting for the BAR (powers-of-2 number of bits from 20 [1 MiB] to 63 [8 EiB]), and to also inform the device of the size that the allocator actually reserved for the MMIO range. This patch adds a Kconfig for a mainboard to select if it knows that it will have a device that requires this support during PCI enumeration. If so, there is a corresponding Kconfig to indicate the maximum number of bits of address space to hand out to devices this way (again, limited by what devices can support and each individual system may want to support, but just like above, this number can range from 20 to 63) If the device can support more bits than this Kconfig, the resource request is truncated to the number indicated by this Kconfig. [1] https://review.coreboot.org/c/coreboot/+/43603 [2] https://review.coreboot.org/c/coreboot/+/58700 [3] https://web.archive.org/web/20220225194308/https://review.coreboot.org/plugins/gitiles/coreboot/+/refs/heads/master/util/coreboot-configurator/README.md [4] https://web.archive.org/web/20220225182803/https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-iio/patch/20211213024057.3824985-4-gwendal@chromium.org/ coreboot 4.15 to 4.16 visualized
Author: Martin Roth
Announcing coreboot 4.8 & 4.8.1
coreboot 4.8 was released on May 15, 2018. An issue with payloads was found immediately after the release was complete, requiring the release of an updated version, 4.8.1. The release tarballs and gpg signatures are available in the usual place at https://www.coreboot.org/downloads.html
coreboot 4.8 & 4.8.1 release notes
The 4.8.1 release contains 2 commits: 5f0b80b880 and 6794ce02d4. This minor release fixes an issue with adding payloads. The 4.8 release covers commit 6dd2f69878 to commit ebdeb4d07d Since the last release, the coreboot project had 1198 commits by 124 authors.
There are PGP signed 4.8 and 4.8.1 tags in the git repository. A branch for 4.8 releases (4.8_branch) has been created.
A big thank you to everyone involved in making this release happen. We couldn’t have done this without the 35 new commit authors, the experienced developers, the many reviewers, documentation writers and the fantastic community supporting users on both the mailing list and the IRC channel.
In general, this has been a calm release cycle. Several old devices were removed from the master branch early in the release, as they hinder development and nobody stepped up doing the porting effort or was willing to test coreboot on them. If there is the desire to get a board back, it isn’t lost as it’s still in the git history.
Intel i945 platform
- On Intel 945 devices, native graphics initialization is now skipped saving around 100 ms during resume from S3. The OS drivers need to be able to handle that. Linux’ i915 driver is able to handle it, but not the frame buffer driver.
AMD Stoney Ridge
- Significant cleanup from older AGESA based platforms
- Fixes to get S3 working
- Updates to GPIO code to match other modern coreboot chips
- AGESA interface cleanup – Use native coreboot functions when possible
Lenovo mainboards
- Started integration of VBT (Video Bios Table) binary files to support native graphics initialisation
Internal changes
- Rename of payload type ‘payload’ to ‘simple_elf’
- Progress in removing typedef device_t
- Migrated all Intel platforms to a common VBT codebase
- Ongoing cleanup of whitespace, spelling and formatting
- Support for PCI in ramstage on non-x86
- Ongoing Intel platform code deduplication
Console changes
- Reduce default loglevel to DEBUG
- Introduce a way for mainboard to override the loglevel
- Restrict console messages to after console initialization
Fixed Bugs
- qemu-i440fx: Fix ACPI checksum corruption
- intelmetool: Fix crash, support ME11+ platforms, fix bootguard detection
- tpm: Fix TPM software stack vulnerability in tlcl_read() for TPM 1.2 (https://github.com/nccgroup/TPMGenie)
- asrock/b75pro3-m: Fixed HDMI
- Intel/ibexpeak: Fix missing ACPI PIRQ entries
- Intel/nehalem: Fix freeze during chipset lockdown
Payloads
- Bumped SeaBIOS to 1.11.1
- Improved TianoCore integration
Security
- Start of refactoring the TPM software stack
- Introduced coreboot security section in kconfig
- VBoot & TPM code moved into src/security
Intelmetool
- Add Intel Boot Guard status support
Documentation
- Switch from Hugo to Sphinx for the Documentation
- Working on markdown documentation for https://doc.coreboot.org
Added 17 mainboards
- Asus MAXIMUS_IV_GENE_Z Intel Sandybridge
- Google ATLAS Intel Kabylake
- Google BIP Intel Geminilake
- Google CHEZA Qualcomm SDM845
- Google NOCTURNE Intel Kabylake
- Google OCTOPUS Intel Geminilake
- Google PHASER Intel Geminilake
- Google YORP Intel Geminilake
- HP 8770W Intel Ivybridge
- HP FOLIO_9470M Intel Ivybridge
- Intel KBLRVP8 Intel Skylake
- Lenovo W520 Intel Sandybridge
- OCP MONOLAKE Intel Broadwell DE
- OCP WEDGE100S Intel Broadwell DE
- Purism Librem 15 v2 Intel Broadwell
- Scaleway TAGADA Intel Denverton
- SiFive HIFIVE_UNLEASHED SiFive FU540
Removed 39 mainboards
- Abit BE6_II_V2_0
- AMD DINAR
- AMD RUMBA
- Asus DSBF
- Asus MEW_AM
- Asus MEW_VM
- A-trend ATC_6220
- A-trend ATC_6240
- AZZA PT_6IBD
- Biostar M6TBA
- Compaq DESKPRO_EN_SFF_P600
- DMP EX
- ECS P6IWP_FE
- Gigabyte GA_6BXC
- Gigabyte GA_6BXE
- HP E_VECTRA_P2706T
- Intel D810E2CB
- Intel EAGLEHEIGHTS
- Intel MTARVON
- Intel TRUXTON
- Iwave RAINBOW_G6
- Lanner EM8510
- Lippert FRONTRUNNER
- Mitac 6513WU
- MSI MS_6119
- MSI MS_6147
- MSI MS_6156
- MSI MS_6178
- NEC POWERMATE_2000
- Nokia IP530
- RCA RM4100
- Soyo SY_6BA_PLUS_III
- Supermicro H8QGI
- Supermicro H8SCM
- Supermicro X7DB8
- Thomson IP1000
- Tyan S1846
- Tyan S8226
- Wyse S50
Added 2 socs
- Qualcomm sdm845
- SiFive fu540
Removed 2 socs
- DMP vortex86ex
- Intel sch
Removed 5 processors
- AMD agesa-family15
- AMD geode-gx2
- Intel ep80579
- Intel model-f0x
- Intel model-f1x
Statistics
- Total commits: 1198
- Average Commits per day: 9.85
- Total authors: 124
- New authors: 35
- Total lines added: 386113
- Total lines removed: 291201
- Total lines difference: 94912
Announcing coreboot 4.6
We are happy to announce the April 2017 release of coreboot, version 4.6.
The 4.6 release covers commit e74f5eaa to commit db508565
Since the last release in October 2016, the coreboot project had 1708 commits by 121 authors.
The release tarballs and gpg signatures are available in the usual place at https://www.coreboot.org/downloads
There is a pgp signed 4.6 tag in the git repository, and a branch will be created as needed.
Changes: Past, ongoing, and future
CBMEM console development and the Linux Kernel
Our cbmem debug console was updated with some nice features. The cbmem console now persists between reboots and is able to be used on some platforms via late init. Also there is a new Linux kernel driver which removes the need for the old cbmem tool to read from the cbmem area. You can find the patch here https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/9641997/ and it can be enabled via GOOGLE_MEMCONSOLE_COREBOOT kconfig option in your kernel – Note that this name may change going forward.
Critical bugs in TPM 1.2 support
coreboot currently has issues with the TPM 1.2 LPC driver implementation. This leads to a misbehavior in SeaBIOS where the TPM gets temporarily deactivated. We plan to publish the bugfix release 4.6.1 when we have these issues sorted out.
Native graphics and ram init improvements
The native graphics was reworked a while ago and should finally support Windows. Numerous bug fixes and EDID support is also now available. Finally, the native ram initialization for sandybridge/ivybridge platforms got patched and supports more RAM modules.
New and fresh payloads
SeaBIOS, FiLO, and iPXE were all recently updated to the latest versions. Https downloads are the default for all payloads now. We provide the libpayload project which is used for writing own payloads from scratch. The library is MOSTLY licensed under BSD and recently received new functionality in order to prepare for the upcoming replacement for the old nvramcui payload. This new payload is called cbui and is based on the nuklear graphics library including keyboard and mouse support. The cbui payload is currently expected to be merged into the main coreboot tree before the next release. The upstream repository is here: https://github.com/siro20/coreboot/tree/cbui/payloads/cbui
UEFI support: A long road to go
coreboot can be used with the Tianocore EDK2 UEFI implementation which is open source and available at Github. Sadly it is not currently integrated into the coreboot build. This has several reasons:
- EDK2 only supports GCC 4.8 profile. coreboot is now running on GCC 6.3.0.
- Incompatibilities with code inside the EDK2 which has not been updated.
We started to make progress with the integration into our sources and the hope is that by the end of the summer, we finally support the EDK2 payload out-of-the-box. See the current patch state at http://review.coreboot.org/#/c/15057/
Fighting blobs and proprietary HW components
coreboot’s ultimate goal would be to replace any closed source firmware stack with free software components. Unfortunately this is not always possible due to signed binaries such as the Intel ME firmware, the AMD PSP and microcode. Recently, a way was discovered to let the Intel ME run in a functional error state and reduce it from 1.5/5MB to 80KB. It’s not perfect but it works from Nehalem up to Skylake based Intel systems. The tool is now integrated into the coreboot build system. The upstream repository is https://github.com/corna/me_cleaner
Another ongoing improvement is the new utility blobtool. It is currently used for generating the flash descriptor and GbE configuration data on older mainboard which are known to be free software. It can easily be extended for different binaries with well-defined specifications.
Did you say Ada?
coreboot now supports Ada, and a lot work was done integrating Ada into our toolchain. At the moment only the support for formal verification is missing and will be soon added. At that point, we can prove the absence of runtime errors in our Ada code. In short, everybody can start developing Ada code for our project.
The existing Ada code which can be used from now on is another native graphics initialization which will replace in the long term the current implementation. The native graphics code supports all Intel platforms up to skylake. We offer support for HDMI, VGA, DVI and DP external interfaces as well and is ready to be integrated into our mainboard implementations.
Toolchain updates
A new coreboot toolchain is out. The major toolchain change was going from GCC version 5.3.0 to 6.3.0. There were also minor version updates to GMP, MPFR, Binutils, GDB, IASL, and Clang.
Deprecation policy for boards
Starting with this release there will be a policy for deprecating unmaintained boards. See the end of this announcement for details.
Change Summary
Build system (20 commits)
- Clean up Kconfig
- Show more useful error messages
Codebase cleanup (94 commits)
- Many fixes for files to pass checkpatch. Lots more to do here.
- Remove commented out code
- Updates to transition away from device_t
- Work to get rid of included C files
Documentation (6 commits)
- Start adding technotes/Design docs
- Add Kconfig documentation
ACPI & acpigen library
- Add GPIO macros
- Clean up and add more functions to ACPIGEN library
EC (26 commits)
- Add roda/it8518 embedded controller
TPM (41 commits)
- Cleanup
- Update ACPI ASL, Runtime generate ACPI table for TPM driver
- Make SPI TPM driver CAR-safe
- Update TPM init sequence
Devices (24 commits)
- Add a new SPI device type
- Allow devicetree accesses in postcar stage
- PCIEXP_ASPM: Unify code with other PCI-e tuning
Lib (28 commits)
- Add option to use Ada code in ramstage
- bootstate: add arch specific hook at coreboot exit
- cbfs: Add API to locate a file from specific region
- Add library to handle SPD data in CBFS or DIMM
- Add region file support
- Turn CBMEM console into a ring buffer that can persist across reboots
Commonlib (11 commits)
- Add xmalloc, xzmalloc and dma routines
- Add input and output buffer helpers
Drivers (29 commits)
- i2c: Pass in i2c_generic_config into i2c_generic_fill_ssdt
- i2c/alps: Add support for ALPS Touchpad driver
- i2c/generic: Add support for GPIO IRQ
- i2c/generic: Enable support for adding PowerResource for device
- i2c/hid: Add generic I2C HID driver
- i2c/max98927: add i2c driver for Maxim 98927 codec
- i2c/wacom_ts: Add support for WCOM touchscreen device driver
- pc80/rtc: Check cmos checksum BEFORE reading cmos value
- regulator: Add driver for handling GPIO-based fixed regulator
- storage: Add SD/MMC/eMMC driver based upon depthcharge
SPI interface
- Significant cleanup and refactoring
Include (17 commits)
- cpu/intel: Add MSR to support enabling turbo frequency
- elog: Add all EC event codes
SuperIO (12 commits)
- Updates for ITE SIOs
- Add 2 new chips
- Consolidate code to use common routines
Vboot (23 commits)
- Add support for recovery hash space in TPM
RISC-V (25 commits)
- Add lowRISC System On Chip support
- Cbmem patches, move to common architectural code
ARM (16 commits)
- Init new serial struct variables for samsung exynos5420 & allwinner a10
- Fix verstage to use proper assembly versions of mem*()
RockChip RK3399 & platforms (46 commits)
- Memory, I2C, USB, SD & Display fixes
X86 Intel (193 commits)
- Broadwell/Sata: Add support for setting IOBP registers for Ports 2 and 3.
- cpu/intel/common: Add/Use common function to set virtualization
- drivers/intel/fsp1_1: Fix boot failure for non-verstage case
- drivers/intel/fsp2_0: Reset on invalid stage cache.
- drivers/intel/gma: Add textmode using libgfxinit & use scaling to simplify config
- drivers/intel/mipi_camera: Add MIPI CSI camera SSDT generator
- broadwell_de: Add SMM code
- intelblocks/msr: Move intel x86 MSR definition into common location
- intel/broadwell: Use the correct SATA port config for setting IOBP register
- intel/wifi: Create ACPI objects for wifi SAR configuration
- lynxpoint bd82x6x: Enable PCI-to-PCI bridge
- mrc: Add support for separate training cache in recovery mode
- nb/i945/early_init.c: Add FSB800 and 1067 to Egress Port Virtual Channel
- nb/i945/raminit: Add fixes for 800MHz & 1067MHz FSB CPUs
- nb/intel/gm45: Fix panel-power-sequence clock divisor
- nb/intel/i945: Fix PEG port on 945gc & sdram_enhanced_addressing for channel1
- nb/intel/pineview: Move to early cbmem
- nb/pineview/raminit: Skip Jedec init on resume, fix hot reset path
- nb/intel/sandybridge/gma: Always initialize DP buffer translation
- sb/ich7: Use common/gpio.h to set up GPIOs
- sb/intel/bd82x6x: Add TCO_Lock in finalize step
- sb/intel/common/gpio: Support ICH9M and prior
- sb/intel/i82801gx: Add i2c_block_read to smbus.h
sandybridge/raminit
- Fix CAS Write Latency, disable_channel, normalize_training & odt stretch
- Separate Sandybridge and Ivybridge
- Reset internal state on fallback attempts
- Find CMD rate per channel
soc/intel/common
- Add common routines for HECI, ITSS, PCR, RTC, systemagent, UART, XHCI, & LPSS
- Save Memory DIMM Information in SMBIOS table
Apollolake (183 commits)
- Switch to common routines for LPSS, RTC, ITSS, UART, XHCI, & PCR
- Enable turbo
- Add save/restore variable MRC cache
- Allow ApolloLake SoC to use FSP CAR Init
- Allow USB2 eye pattern configuration in devicetree
Quark & platforms (14 commits)
- Fix I2c & Serial port config
- Add vboot support
ga-g41m-es2l, x4x northbridge & LGA775 (23 commits)
- Memory fixes
- Add S3 suspend/resume
Skylake / Kabylake (208 commits)
- Add devicetree settings for acoustic noise mitigation
- Perform CPU MP Init before FSP-S Init
- Add support for GSPI controller & add GSPI controller get_config support
- Enable Systemagent IMGU
- Add USB Port Over Current support & Expand USB OC pins support PCH-H
- Extract DIMM Information from FSP MEM INFO HOB
- Add support for eSPI SMI events
- Update ACPI & various methods
X86 amd (116 commits)
- ACPI S3: Remove HIGH_MEMORY_SAVE where possible
- AMD fam10 binaryPI: Remove invalid PCI ops on CPU domain
- binaryPI platforms: Drop ACPI S3 support
- sb/amd/sb700: Disable LPC ROM mapping when SPI Flash is used
- southbridge/amd: Add LPC bridge acpi path for Family14 and SB800
- arch/x86: remove CAR global migration when postcar stage is used
- x86/acpi: Add VFCT table
AMD: vendorcode, AGESA, binaryPI (72 commits)
- Cleanup & consolidate duplicate code
- Fork for new cache-as-ram init code & Fix binaryPI cache-as-ram
- Refactor S3 support functions and Delay ACPI S3 backup until ramstage loader
amd/mct:
- Fix CsMux45 configuration, maximum read latency, & DQ mask calculation
Mainboards (198 commits)
- asus/f2a85-m_le: Activate IOMMU support
- lenovo/h8: Add USB Always On
- google/oak: Enable dual DSI for rowan and the BOE 8-lane MIPI/DSI panel
- google/parrot: Fix keyboard interrupts, DSDT
- google/veyron: Work around RAM code strapping error
- lenovo/t400: Rewrite dock from t60
- intel/d510mo: enable ACPI resume from S3
- intel/d945gclf: Fix resume from S3 suspend
- lenovo/t400: Implement hybrid graphic in romstage
- Enable libgfxinit on lenovo/t420 & x230, kontron/ktqm77, google/slippy
- lenovo/x60,t60: Move EC CMOS parameters in checksummed space
- mc_tcu3: Do not abort initialization of PTN3460 when HW-ID is missing
- mc_tcu3: Swap LVDS even and odd lanes for a certain hardware
- purism/librem13: Enable support for M.2 NVMe & Fix M.2 issues
Payloads (53 commits)
- Update FILO, SeaBIOS, & iPXE versions
- Many libpayload fixes and updates
Toolchain (19 commits)
- Update GCC, Binutils, GMP, MPFR, GDB, IASL and LLVM
Utilities: (145 commits)
- abuild: Build saved config files and print failed builds at the end
- autoport: Create superiotool logs and fix romstage generator
- board-status: Update bucketize script and add README file
- cbfstool: Add cbfs-compression-tool and enable adding precompressed files
- cbmem: Add custom aligned memcpy() implementation
- ectool: Fix timeout on sending EC command and support OpenBSD
- ifdtool: Fix ICH Gbe unlock
- intelmetool: Add support for Wildcat Point LP, fix segfault on edge cases
- inteltool: Add support for CH6-10, ICH10, Wildcat Point-LP and fix ICH SPIBAR
- sconfig: Add a new SPI device type
- superiotool: Add new chips – IT8783E/F, W83627DHG, W83627EHG, F71808A
Changes in chips
Added 1 processor & northbridge:
- amd/pi/00670F00
Added 1 soc:
- lowrisc/lowrisc
Removed 1 northbridge:
- intel/e7501
Added 2 sios:
- fintek/f71808a
- ite/it8783ef
Mainboard changes
Added 52 mainboards and variants:
- AMD Gardenia – AMD Stoney Ridge
- Asus F2A85_M_PRO – AMD Family 15h Trinity
- Asus P5GC_MX – Intel Socket LGA775
- Gigabyte GA_945GCM_S2L & GA_945GCM_S2C variant – Intel Socket LGA775
- Google Auron variants: Yuna, Gandof, Lulu – Intel Broadwell
- Google Beltino variants: McCloud, Monroe, Tricky, Zako – Intel Haswell
- Google Eve – Intel Kabylake
- Google Fizz – Intel Kabylake
- Google Gru variants: Bob, Scarlet – RockChip RK3399
- Google Oak variants: Hana, Rowan – MediaTek MT8173
- Google Poppy & Soraka variant – Intel Kabylake
- Google Rambi variants: Banjo, Candy, Clapper, Glimmer, Gnawty, Heli, Kip, Orco, Quawks, Squawks, Sumo, Swanky, & Winky – Intel Baytrail
- Google Reef variants: Sand, Snappy, Nasher – Intel Apollolake
- Google Slippy variants: Leon, Wolf – Intel Haswell
- Intel KBLRVP3 & KBLRVP7 – Intel Kabylake
- Intel LEAFHILL – Intel Apollolake
- Intel MINNOW3 – Intel Apollolake
- Lenovo L520: Intel Sandybridge
- Lenovo S230U: Intel Ivybridge
- Lenovo X1 Carbon GEN1 – Intel Sandybridge
- lowRISC NEXYS4DDR – RiscV
- MSI MS7721 – AMD Bulldozer
- PC Engines APU2 – AMD Jaguar
- RODA RV11 & RW11 variant – Intel Ivybridge
- Sapphire Pure Platinum H61 – Intel Socket LGA1155
- Siemens MC_APL1 – Intel Apollolake
Removed 10 mainboard variants:
- Google Auron (Still available as a base-board for variants)
- Google Veyron Chromeboxes: Brain, Danger, Emile, Romy
- Google Veyron Test Projects: Gus, Nicky, Pinky, Shark, Thea
Utilities
Added 2 new utilities:
- blobtool
- me_cleaner
Submodules
Updated 5 submodules
- 3rdparty/blobs (10 commits)
- 3rdparty/arm-trusted-firmware (172 commits)
- 3rdparty/vboot (158 commits)
- 3rdparty/chromeec/ (810 commits)
- util/nvidia/cbootimage (2 commits)
Tested boards
The following boards were tested recently:
- emulation qemu-q35 4.6-1
- asus kgpe-d16 4.6-1
- asus kfsn4-dre 4.6-1
- asus p5gc-mx 4.6-1
- lenovo x60 4.5-1681 / 4.6-7
- lenovo x230 4.5-1674 / 4.6-27
- asrock e350m1 4.5-1662 / 4.6-7
- lenovo t420 4.5-1640
- lenovo x200 4.5-1598 / 4.6-33
- sapphire pureplatinumh61 4.5-1575
- gigabyte ga-945gcm-s2l 4.5-1568
- lenovo t400 4.5-1564
- lenovo t60 4.5-1559
- gigabyte m57sli 4.5-1526
- purism librem13 4.5-1503
- gigabyte ga-g41m-es2l 4.5-1444
- google slippy 4.5-1441
- intel d510mo 4.5-1341
coreboot statistics from e74f5eaa43 to db508565d2
- Total Commits: 1708
- Average Commits per day: 8.75
- Total authors: 121
- New authors: 34
- Total Reviewers: 72
- Total Submitters: 19
- Total lines added: 177576
- Total lines removed: – 107460
- Total difference: 70116
Code removal after the 4.6 release
The only platform currently scheduled for removal is the bifferos/bifferboard & soc/rdc/r8610. This platform is one of two that still uses romcc to compile romstage and doesn’t have cache-as-ram in romstage – the others were all removed long ago. Additionally, it seems to be impossible to buy, so as far as it can be determined, no testing has been done recently.
Code removal after the 4.7 release
One of the things that the coreboot project has struggled with is how to maintain the older platforms while still moving the rest of the platforms forward. Currently there are numerous platforms in the codebase which have not been well maintained.
Starting with the 4.7 release in October, the coreboot leadership is going to set standards that platforms are expected to meet to remain in the active codebase. These will generally be announced 3 – 6 months in advance to give time to get changes in. The expectation is not necessarily even that all work to meet the goal will be completed, but it is expected that a reasonable effort has started to meet the goal at the time of the release. Regardless of the work that’s been done, platforms which have not met the goal by the following release will be removed.
The next expectation that will need to be met for all platforms is cbmem in romstage. This currently affects numerous platforms, including most, if not all of AMD’s platforms. Work to update many of these platforms has started, but there are others that have not made any progress towards this goal. A list of the platforms that are affected by this will be sent to the mailing list shortly.
Code removal after the 4.8 release
To further clean things up, starting with the 4.8 release, any platform that does not have a successful boot logged in the board_status repo in the previous year (that is, within the previous two releases) will be removed from the maintained coreboot codebase. Chips that do not have any associated boards will also be removed. These platforms will be announced before the release so that there is time for people to test if desired.
This is not meant to be a high bar, but as a measure to clean up the codebase and eliminate boards and chips that are actually no longer being used. The cleanup will happen just after the release, so the removed platforms will still be available in the release branch if desired. If there is still interest, developers can bring back old chips and boards by porting them to the new tree (and bringing them to current standards).
This gives everyone until April 2018 to get any boards that they care about tested before the first removal.
All the code removal information will also be sent to the mailing list along with additional details.
Results of the coreboot “Mailing List vs Forum” poll
A little while back, there were a few requests to switch from the mailing list format to a web-based forum for our official communication channel. The coreboot leadership wanted to see what the actual preferences of the coreboot community was, so I posted a poll. The poll was publicized in IRC and on the mailing list itself, so should have been communicated to the people who would be most directly affected by any change.
Poll results
Here are the overall results from all responses:
We had a total of 60 valid responses, and I think the overall results pretty clearly indicate that the coreboot project should NOT move away from the mailing list.
One suggestion was to split the communication into the mailing list for Developers, and a forum for non-developers. To see what the various groups thought, I made a few more charts:
Developer preferences:
So not unexpectedly, the coreboot developers even more overwhelmingly prefer the mailing list to the general results
Non-developer preferences:
So even within the non-developer group, there was a definite preference for the mailing list format.
Finally, I broke the Non-developer group down into the group that said they were coreboot users, as opposed to those that mainly read the mailing list.
coreboot users (non-developers):
That group had the highest percentage of people who preferred the forum, but it was still well under 40%.
Suggestions
We also asked people what we should do to improve the mailing list. Here’s a summary of the suggestions:
- Show people how to set up their (or a different) email client to make reading the mailing list easier.
- Have people be more polite.
- Add a FAQ showing previously asked question and answers.
- A netiquette should be established like on the Linux kernel mailing list.
- Several suggestions to improve the coreboot mailing list archive at https://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/
- Fix the archive so that long threads aren’t spread into different sections by months.
- Add a search function to the archive
- Create monthly archives that can be downloaded (This exists.)
- Update from Pipermail to a more modern archiver like Hyperkitty – https://pypi.python.org/pypi/HyperKitty
Since it doesn’t look like we’re going to switch to a forum, I’m not going to list the suggestions that people had for that.
Follow-up
Over the upcoming weeks, we’ll look at our options, and discuss our options and plans in the bi-weekly coreboot community meetings.
coreboot is joining the Software Freedom Conservancy
The coreboot project applied to join the Software Freedom Conservancy and has been approved for membership by their board. There is still some work to be done in hammering out the governance details, but we hope to have everything completed by April.
Joining the SFC as coreboot’s fiscal sponsor will allow us to go forward with fundraising, and that all donations to the coreboot project from the United States will be tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. Up to this point, coreboot hasn’t had any official way to accept donations or payments. This has meant that the project was mainly supported financially by members of the coreboot leadership, which has put some limitations on what we were able to do.
Another of the things that joining the SFC means is that we will be formalizing and fully documenting the coreboot leadership structure. This is one of the Conservancy’s requirements, and something that they will help the project with.
The Conservancy offers a number of other services to its members. We encourage everyone to take a look at the SFC, and to consider joining as individual supporters.
Announcing coreboot 4.5
We are happy to announce the release of coreboot 4.5
The 4.5 release covers commit 80a3df260767 to commit 0bc12abc2b26.
This release is the first since the project switched from doing quarterly releases to doing biannual releases. The next release will be in April of 2017.
Since the last release in April, the coreboot project has had 1889 commits by 119 authors.
The release tarballs and gpg signatures are available in the usual place at https://www.coreboot.org/downloads
There is a 4.5 tag in the git repository, and a branch will be created as needed.
Areas with significant updates:
- Toolchain (29 commits)
- Updated mpfr version from 3.1.3 to 3.1.4
- Updated gcc version from 5.2.0 to 5.3.0
- Updated binutils version from 2.25 to 2.26.1 & Fix aarch64 build problem
- Updated gdb version from 7.9.1 to 7.11
- Updated iasl version from 20160318 to 20160831
- Updated python version from 3.4.3 to 3.5.1
- Updated expat version from 2.1.0 to 2.1.1
- Updated llvm / clang version from 3.7.1 to 3.8.0
- Updated make version from 4.1 to 4.2.1
- Build system (32 commits)
- Updates for cbfstool / fmap changes
- Order per-region files to optimize placement success
- Add support for the ADA language and toolchain.
- Utilities (103 commits)
- Lint – Update checkpatch.pl, add tools to find non-ascii & unprintable chars and to verify a single newline at the end of files
- cbfstool – Update for Linux payloads, Honor FSP modules addresses, fix elf parsing
- Sconfig – Add 10 bit addressing mode for i2c devices, add generic device type, support strings, pass in devicetree filename
- General code cleanup (197 commits)
- Cleaning up code formatting and whitespace
- Fix spelling & capitalization
- Removing commented out code
- Transition away from device_t
- TPM (55 commits)
- Add support for Trusted Platform Module 2.0
- SPI & refactored I2C TPM driver
- Drivers (54 commits)
- Add ACPI support in several drivers
- coreboot_tables – Extend serial port description
- Elog – refactor, add debug info
- I2C – add generic driver,
- SPI – Add new chip support, major refactoring, don’t assume SPI flash boot device
- Lib (33 commits)
- Add real-time-clock functions
- Add RW boot device construct
- reg_script updates: add to bootblock, add xor support, add display support
- Timestamp fixes & updates
- Vendorcode
- AMD (14 commits) – Cleanup, add libagesa.a builds, remove unused code.
- Google (22 commits) – VBoot2 updates and cleanup
- Intel (86 commits) – Add Intel FSP 2.0, update Broadwell DE support
- Payloads (37 commits)
- Subpayload support got extend and is enabled by default.
- nvramcui: refactor, update build
- SeaBIOS: Update stable version to 1.9.3, add bootorder file
- iPXE: Update stable version to the last commit of July 2016
- Fix broken linux boot sequence
Mainboard changes
Added 13 mainboards, plus a few mainboard variants not included here:
- ADI RCC-DFF networking board (adi/rcc-dff) – intel/rangeley SoC
- AMD Evaluation Board DB-FT3B-LC (amd/db-ft3b-lc) – amd/00730F01 (Family 16h Models 30h-3Fh (Mullins)) CPU
- AMD f2950 / TONK 1201/2 Board (amd/f2950) – amd/geode_lx CPU
- Apple iMAC 5.2 (apple/imac52) – intel/i945 CPU
- Unibap Development Kit ODE E21XX – amd/00730F01 (Family 16h Models 30h-3Fh (Mullins)) CPU
- elmex/pcm205400 – amd/Family_14 CPU
- elmex/pcm205401 – amd/Family_14 CPU
- Lenovo N21 chromebook (google/enguarde) – intel/baytrail SoC
- google/gale – Qualcomm IPQ40XX SoC
- AOpen Chromebox (google/ninja) – intel/baytrail SoC
- google/reef – intel/apollolake SoC
- Acer Chromebox CXI2 (google/rikku) – intel/Broadwell SoC
- google/rotor – marvell/MVMAP2315 SoC
Removed 5 mainboards:
These were all development boards not available to the public.
- google/bolt – intel/haswell – removed in commit 139314b
- google/rush – nvidia/tegra132 – removed in commit e67cd9e
- google/rush_ryu – nvidia/tegra132 – removed in commit 0c63415
- google/slippy – intel/haswell – removed in commit bc24b85
- intel/amenia – intel/apollolake – removed in commit c2586db
Existing boards with significant updates
- asus/kgpe-d16 – amd/socket_G34 – Add TPM support, enable secondary serial port
- emulation/spike-riscv: RISC-V -clean up, use generic bootblock, look for CBFS in RAM, reimplement SBI
- google/gru – rockchip/RK3399 SoC (76 commits) – Board bringup
- google/oak – mediatek/mt8173 SoC- Add Elm variant, update memory, configure display, initialize touchscreen gpio
- intel/galilleo- intel/quark SoC (14 commits) – Board bringup, add galileo gen1 support, switch to FSP2.0
- intel/minnowmax – intel/fsp_baytrail SoC – Enable all PCIe ports, Program GPIO for power LED
- lenovo/x60 – intel/socket_mPGA478 – init GPIOs before dock check, add hda verb table
- siemens/mc_bdx1 – intel/fsp_broadwell_de SoC – Add external RTC, Set up MAC addresses, Update IRQs
- siemens/mc_tcu3 – intel/fsp_baytrail SoC – cleanup & LCD panel updates
Changes in chips
Moved 3 northbridge/southbridge pairs to soc:
- dmp/vortex86ex
- intel/sch
- rdc/r8610
Added 2 socs:
- marvell/mvmap2315 (12 commits)
- qualcomm/ipq40xx (22 commits)
Removed 1 soc:
- nvidia/tegra132 – removed in commit 9ba0699
Added 2 sios:
- nuvoton/nct6776
- nuvoton/nct6791d
Existing chip areas with many changes
- ARM (34 commits)
- Add armv7-r configuration
- rockchip/rk3399 (73 commits) – Bringup, memory updates
- RISC-V (40 commits)
- Improve and refactor trap handling
- X86 (225 commits)
- ACPI (40 commits) Add support for writing various entries and descriptor types, Add common definitions, Use ‘GOOG’ id for coreboot table
- amd/mct_ddr3 northbridge: Support non-ECC DIMMs, Update SMBIOS, various fixes
- arch/x86: many postcar stage updates, add common ACPI definitions, Support “weak” BIST and timestamp save routines
- intel/apollolake SoC (211 commits) – Chip bringup, Update bootblock
- intel/common: ACPI updates, Add smihandler, LPSS I2C driver, and IGD OpRegion support
- intel/fsp_broadwell_de: IRQ fixes, SPI message fixes, Add DMAR table to ACPI
- intel/gm45 northbridge: Fix text mode init, enable vesa framebuffer, use VGA if connected
- intel/i945 northbridge: add native VGA init, Update divisor calculations
- intel/quark SoC (62 commits) – Chip bringup, add Fsp2.0 support, updates for serial console
- intel/skylake CPU (61 commits) – Finished Skylake bringup, start updating for Kabylake FSP
- intel/x4x northbridge (13 commits) – Memory & Graphics updates
Submodules
Updated 4 submodules
- 3rdparty/blobs (6 commits)
- 3rdparty/arm-trusted-firmware (425 commits)
- 3rdparty/vboot (61 commits)
- 3rdparty/chromeec/ (676 commits)
Tested boards
The following boards were tested for this release:
- asrock/e350m1 4.4-1890
- asus/kfsn4-dre 4.4-1698 / 4.5-17
- asus/kgpe-d16 4.4-1802 / 4.5-17
- emulation/qemu-q35 4.4-1698 / 4.5-8
- gigabyte/ga-b75m-d3v 4.4-1757
- google/peppy 4.4-1882
- lenovo/g505s 4.4-1739
- lenovo/x201 4.4-1886
- lenovo/x220 4.4-1746 / 4.5-17
coreboot statistics
Total Commits: 1889
Average Commits per day: 10.92
Total authors: 119
New authors: 47
Total Reviewers: 67
Total Submitters: 19
Total lines added: 164950
Total lines removed: -182737
Total difference: -17787
Announcing coreboot 4.4
We are happy to announce the release of coreboot 4.4. This is our fourth quarterly release. Since the last release, we’ve had 850 commits by 90 authors adding 59000 lines to the codebase.
The release tarballs are available at https://www.coreboot.org/releases/
There is a 4.4 tag and branch in the git repository.
Log of commit 3141eac900 to commit 588ccaa9a7
Major areas that received significant changes in for this release:
- Build system (30 commits) – Add postcar stage, ‘timeless’ builds, extend site-local, test toolchain by version string, update dependencies, catch ACPI errors, l add additional macros.
- Toolchain updates (40+ patches) – Update IASL to v20160318 , LLVM to v3.7.1, add GNU make, add nds32le GCC compiler
- Lint tools (30 patches) – Update existing lint utilities, add lint tests for executable bit, make sure site-local isn’t committed, add test to break all lint tests.
- Payloads (60 commits) – Fixes for libpayload, coreinfo and nvramcui, add new payloads, see below.
- Maintainers file – (8 patches) – continue adding maintainers for various areas.
- Documentation for adding Intel FSP-based platforms (20 commits)
Mainboards
Added 9 mainboards
- asus/kcma-d8
- emulation/qemu-power8
- google/auron_paine
- google/gru
- intel/amenia
- intel/apollolake_rvp
- intel/camelbackmountain_fsp
- intel/galileo
- lenovo/t420
Existing boards with significant updates
- asus/kgpe-d16
- google/oak
- google/chell
- intel/kunimitsu
Changes in chips
Added 1 new architecture
- power8
Added 1 processor
- qemu-power8
Added 5 socs
- intel/apollolake
- intel/fsp_broadwell_de
- intel/quark
- marvell/armada38x
- rockchip/rk3399
Existing chip areas with many changes
- cpuamd/mct_ddr3
- drivers/intel/fsp2_0
- northbridge/intel/sandybridge/raminit
- soc/intel/apollolake
- soc/intel/fsp_baytrail
- soc/intel/skylake
- soc/mediatek/mt8173
Added 1 new vendorcode directory
- siemens
Submodules
Added 1 submodule
- chromeec
Updated 3 submodules
- 3rdparty/arm-trusted-firmware (329 commits)
- 3rdparty/vboot (28 commits)
- util/nvidia/cbootimage (13 commits)
Other
Added 4 payloads
- depthcharge: For ChromeOS verified boot
- iPXE: For network booting
- Memtest86+: Updated with fixes for correctly testing coreboot with payloads
- U-Boot (Experimental): Alternate payload for booting an OS
Added 6 utilities
- archive – Concatenates files into a single blob with an indexed header
- chromeos – Download and extract blobs from a ChromeOS image
- futility – vboot Firmware utility
- intelmetool – Shows information about the Intel ME on a platform.
- marvell/doimage_mv – No usage notes
- post – Simple utility to test post cards
coreboot statistics
- Total Commits: 850
- Total authors: 90
- New authors: 28
- Total Reviewers: 40
- Total Submitters: 17
- Total lines added: 74054
- Total lines removed: -15056
- Total difference: 58998
coreboot changelog March 2 – March 15
This changelog covers 187 commits in the two week period between March 2, 2016 and March 15, 2016. (c77e0419 – 80547369)
Once again this time, we had many changes in the payloads area. We added a memtest86+ git repository, and set it up as a secondary payload within the coreboot build process. SeaBIOS updated the stable version from 1.9.0 to 1.9.1 and has a new option to build from any specified commit instead of just master or stable branches. Google’s depthcharge payload was added for ChromeOS builds, and the coreinfo payload started getting some updates – removing obsolete pieces, fixing the makefile, and correcting issues with cbfs.
The MediaTek MT8173 ARM based SOC and the Google OAK board using it received a significant number of patches, adding trusted firmware support, and initialization routines for memory, USB, audio, TPM, GPIOs, I2c and RTC.
Several other groups of patches were to perform cleanup for various chipsets. One series unified and fixed up the UDELAY settings, many of which were incorrectly specifying TSC delays which weren’t supported by those platforms. Other sets removed code #includes of C files, merged the MRC cache implementations into a single common version, and combined Sandybridge & Ivybridge LVDS implementations. The FSP version of Intel’s Bay Trail was updated to mirror the non-FSP implementation, enabling LPE and LPSS in ACPI mode. The plan with Bay Trail is to make the two versions as similar as possible, then work to combine the directories and use common code for both.
Intel has started adding support for their Xeon D (Broadwell DE) processor. So far only the vendorcode has been merged. The coreboot code is another 4700 lines of chipset code and 800 lines of mainboard code, so that’s taking some time to get reviewed.
The patches bringing up the Quark and Apollo Lake Intel chips continued, with Quark getting minor updates and Apollo Lake continuing to add core functionality like memory init and the various calls into the FSP.
Additional work was done on Skylake as well, updating the FSP parameter table, adding a Voltage Regulator mailbox command, and adding clock gating for the 8254 timer.
Utilities only got a few changes this time. The cbmem utility got a fix a regression and correctly scale the timestamp values and an option to change the SPI ROM chip sizes was added to ifdtool. Cbfstool got a couple of fixes as well, making sure the structure sizes are the same whether compiled for 32-bit or 64 bit platforms, and zeroing out unused Linux parameters.
AMD’s native memory initialization got some more cleanup and several fixes, restoring DQS delay values on a failed loop, and making sure that both read and write training pass before proceeding to the next training phase instead of continuing when either one passed.
SMBIOS changes included a patch to add SMBIOS type 17 (Memory) fields to the Sandy Bridge / Ivy Bridge platforms, and another patch to fix the length calculated for those fields for every platform. A third patch added the names of several different DIMM vendors.
The X86 bootblock renamed several symbols for clarification, removed some unused code, and marked the reset vector as executable so it would show up in objdump.
We had a slew of patches from new authors merged in the past two weeks. Welcome to all new authors and thank you to everyone.
Antonello Dettori had 3 patches merged, allowing SeaBIOS to be build from any revision, and cleaning up early serial on the roda rk9 and amd thatcher platforms.
Bayi Cheng wrote a patch adding NOR flash DMA read routines for the Mediatek MT8173.
Georg Wicherski updated and added Google’s auron paine board.
Huki Huang modified the ChromeOS wifi regulatory domain to use the region key from VPD.
Jan Tatje updated the Intel Firmware Descriptor tool (iftdool) to allow the SPI rom sizes to be updated.
Jitao Shi added the parade ps8640 MIPI-to-eDP video format converter driver.
Jonathan Neuschäfer had an astounding 7 patches merged in his first couple of weeks submitting to coreboot. He fixed a syntax error in buildgcc, and updating several areas in coreinfo.
Jun Gao did I2C work on Mediatek MT8173 and on Google’s Oak board,
Lance Zhao had a pair of patches for Intel’s Apollo Lake reference board, setting up the devicetree, and adding memory training configuration.
Medha Garima added runtime SD card detection to Intel’s Kunimitsu board.
Milton Chiang had a patch updating the infracfg register map for the Mediatek MT8173.
Peter Kao wrote a pair of patches adding DRAM initialization to the Mediatek MT8173 and Google’s Oak board.
PH Hsu set up 4GB mode on Mediatek MT8173 and Google’s Oak board.
coreboot statistics
- Total commits: 187 - Total authors: 44 - New authors: 13 - Total lines added: 15724 - Total lines removed: -1750 - Total difference: 13974 Added 1 mainboards: google/auron_paine Added 1 new driver: parade/ps864C === Top Authors - Number of commits === Martin Roth 27 (14.439%) Stefan Reinauer 24 (12.834%) Andrey Petrov 18 (9.626%) Aaron Durbin 15 (8.021%) Yidi Lin 8 (4.278%) Timothy Pearson 8 (4.278%) Jonathan Neuschäfer 7 (3.743%) Patrick Rudolph 7 (3.743%) Leroy P Leahy 6 (3.209%) Alexander Couzens 5 (2.674%) Duncan Laurie 5 (2.674%) Total Authors: 44 === Top Authors - Lines added === Peter Kao 3750 (23.849%) Andrey Petrov 2536 (16.128%) York Yang 2509 (15.956%) Georg Wicherski 2214 (14.080%) Alexandru Gagniuc 409 (2.601%) Ben Gardner 406 (2.582%) Leroy P Leahy 384 (2.442%) Daisuke Nojiri 373 (2.372%) Bayi Cheng 314 (1.997%) Martin Roth 256 (1.628%) === Top Authors - Lines removed === Alexander Couzens 309 (17.657%) Leroy P Leahy 255 (14.571%) Stefan Reinauer 207 (11.829%) Aaron Durbin 162 (9.257%) Jonathan Neuschäfer 156 (8.914%) Timothy Pearson 127 (7.257%) Julius Werner 93 (5.314%) Zheng Bao 87 (4.971%) Martin Roth 66 (3.771%) Andrey Petrov 58 (3.314%) === Top Reviewers - Number of patches reviewed === Martin Roth 82 (43.850%) Stefan Reinauer 62 (33.155%) Paul Menzel 45 (24.064%) Aaron Durbin 28 (14.973%) Andrey Petrov 13 (6.952%) Patrick Georgi 12 (6.417%) Furquan Shaikh 6 (3.209%) Timothy Pearson 4 (2.139%) Ronald G. Minnich 4 (2.139%) Alexander Couzens 4 (2.139%) Total Reviewers: 22 === Submitters - Number of patches submitted === Martin Roth 85 (45.455%) Patrick Georgi 47 (25.134%) Aaron Durbin 24 (12.834%) Stefan Reinauer 20 (10.695%) Vladimir Serbinenko 4 (2.139%) Werner Zeh 2 (1.070%) Timothy Pearson 2 (1.070%) Zheng Bao 1 (0.535%) Leroy P Leahy 1 (0.535%) Ronald G. Minnich 1 (0.535%) Total Submitters: 10
GSoC 2016
The coreboot project is proud to announce that it has been selected as one of the 2016 Google Summer of Code (GSoC) mentor organizations. GSoC is a program designed to encourage university students age 18 and older to participate in open source projects. This is done by paying students to partner with experienced mentors from the selected open source projects to work on a specific project chosen by the student. This helps the mentor organization by encouraging participation and getting tasks done while helping the student get involved in open source, add projects to their resume, and learn from experienced open-source participants.
Student applications begin next Monday, March 14th, 2016, and close on Friday, March 25th. Accepted student projects will be announced on April 22nd. Any students who are interested in applying for a coreboot, flashrom, or SerialICE GSoC project should look at the GSoC student terms page, and at both coreboot’s GSoC page and the coreboot / Flashrom / SerialICE projects page. Projects are not limited to what is currently listed here. Students typically select from these, but if you have other ideas of projects in our space, we’d love to hear about them.
As noted above, coreboot acts as an umbrella organization for other firmware related open-source projects, currently supporting Flashrom and SerialICE. If there are other firmware related projects who would like to be included under the coreboot project for GSoC, please contact the project administrators, Patrick Georgi or Martin Roth.
Finally, if you are a developer who would like to volunteer as a mentor, please contact us. First year volunteers will generally be teamed up with experienced mentors, so don’t worry about not having previous experience. If you’re interested, you can read more about mentoring expectations in the GSoC mentoring Guide.
coreboot changelog Feb 17 – March 1
This changelog covers 105 commits in the two week period between February 17, 2016 and March 1, 2016. (6a622311 – 163506a8)
We’ve entered a lower volume period for patches being submitted, so for a while, blog posts will be every two weeks instead of every week. Once we get above 100 patches a week, blog posts will be weekly again.
Payloads got some attention during this period, adding a way to include additional modules into the GRUB2 build. An option was added to build and include coreinfo as a ‘secondary’ payload, allowing it to be run from another payload. We also added U-Boot as a coreboot payload. This is currently still just in development, and needs additional work before it will act as a generic payload for all platforms.
We added LZ4 compression to the build with runtime decompression for cbfs. LZ4’s speed should be roughly the same as LZMA, trading a smaller compressed size for slightly slower decompressoin. LZ4’s main advantage is that it requires much less memory to do the decompression, allowing for compression of stages that couldn’t previously be compressed.
The suite of board-status scripts got several updates, fixing timestamp handling for the sanitized path names, handling when the script is run as super-user in a better way, and adding a script that will set up a Ubuntu Live-image to allow users to more easily run the board-status script.
In the build tools and utilities, we had some fixes for the toolchain builder, updating the GDB builds for x86_64 and MIPS. A couple of scripts were also added. One utility downloads and extracts binary blobs from Chrome OS recovery images, and the other new script allow easier testing of POST cards.
Intel based boards and chipsets received a large percentage of the patches for the past two weeks:
The Galileo board and Quark chip had several pieces new added, along with additional documentation for those changes. Major pieces done were to set up the basic registers, in the ACPI FADT, setting up the memory map, and enabling the UART.
We received the final set of patches to finish out the changes combining many of the the Intel GPIO initialization routines into a single common set of functions. The autoport script was updated to use the common GPIO functions.
Sandy Bridge / Ivy Bridge memory initialization also continued to receive updates, adding support for XMP profiles in the SPD, updating logging, and fixing some bugs.
Intel’s Skylake chipset and boards were updated to enable Hardware P-state control (HWP) based on Intel’s Speed Shift Technology (SST). Another change to Skylake platforms increased stolen memory for graphics to 64MB.
Intel Bay Trail got a couple of updates, adding a fix for issues with displayport on the FSP version, and adding IOSF access support to the reg_script module.
Intel Apollo Lake had several more foundational pieces added to the codebase. Many more patches for Apollo Lake are expected in the next couple of weeks.
On the non-X86 side, the instructions for running the Arm7 Qemu board were updated, and the memory map was corrected.
RISC-V got a couple of patches, adding additional debugging, and fixing some inline asm code.
The coreboot project would like to recognize another pair of developers who have hit major milestones in the past two weeks:
Lee Leahy just reached his 100th commit merged into coreboot.org. Lee is a developer with Intel who has been working on coreboot for about a year and a half. He has worked on many of the recent intel chipsets, and is currently adding support and documentation for the Intel Galileo board and Quark chips in a way that each step of the process can be tested and verified. While this takes significantly more effort than the typical method of porting, it should result in a better platform.
Tobias Diedrich has just had his 50th patch merged. Tobias has been contributing patches to coreboot for over five years, and his patches have spanned a number of boards and chipsets.
Finally, please welcome our newest authors:
– Andrew Waterman contributed the pair of RISC-V patches.
– Joe Pillow added the Chrome OS recovery image script.
coreboot statistics
- Total commits: 105 - Total authors: 25 - Total lines added: 13396 - Total lines removed: -3127 - Total difference: 10269 Added 1 mainboard: emulation/qemu-power8 Added 1 processor: qemu-power8 Submodule updates: - 3rdparty/arm-trusted-firmware (329 commits) - 3rdparty/vboot (2 commits) === Top Authors - Number of commits === Leroy P Leahy 20 (19.048%) Aaron Durbin 11 (10.476%) Patrick Rudolph 8 (7.619%) Patrick Georgi 8 (7.619%) Martin Roth 8 (7.619%) Stefan Reinauer 5 (4.762%) Vladimir Serbinenko 5 (4.762%) Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli 4 (3.810%) Julius Werner 4 (3.810%) Werner Zeh 4 (3.810%) Duncan Laurie 4 (3.810%) Ronald G. Minnich 4 (3.810%) Total Authors: 25 === Top Authors - Lines added === Julius Werner 7602 (56.748%) Leroy P Leahy 1255 (9.368%) Ronald G. Minnich 1097 (8.189%) Stefan Reinauer 990 (7.390%) Werner Zeh 479 (3.576%) Patrick Rudolph 406 (3.031%) Damien Zammit 336 (2.508%) Martin Roth 293 (2.187%) Aaron Durbin 232 (1.732%) Joseph Pillow 218 (1.627%) === Top Authors - Lines removed === Stefan Reinauer 1662 (53.150%) Patrick Rudolph 936 (29.933%) Julius Werner 154 (4.925%) Aaron Durbin 128 (4.093%) Leroy P Leahy 93 (2.974%) Damien Zammit 21 (0.672%) Patrick Georgi 20 (0.640%) Vladimir Serbinenko 17 (0.544%) Tobias Diedrich 15 (0.480%) David Hendricks 13 (0.416%) === Top Reviewers - Number of patches reviewed === Martin Roth 43 (40.952%) Stefan Reinauer 33 (31.429%) Paul Menzel 30 (28.571%) Aaron Durbin 13 (12.381%) Andrey Petrov 8 (7.619%) Furquan Shaikh 8 (7.619%) Patrick Georgi 6 (5.714%) Ronald G. Minnich 5 (4.762%) Timothy Pearson 4 (3.810%) Patrick Rudolph 3 (2.857%) Total Reviewers: 18 === Top Submitters - Number of patches submitted === Martin Roth 40 (38.095%) Leroy P Leahy 18 (17.143%) Stefan Reinauer 13 (12.381%) Patrick Georgi 8 (7.619%) Aaron Durbin 8 (7.619%) Vladimir Serbinenko 5 (4.762%) Ronald G. Minnich 4 (3.810%) Julius Werner 4 (3.810%) Werner Zeh 3 (2.857%) Total Submitters: 11