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

A friend gave me the his x1 carbon gen1 some time ago. The x1 carbon is little bit different from other Thinkpad because it's a combination of a Thinkpad and a Ultrabook.

• It has a Trackpoint (and even Trackpoint buttons).
• It has soldered memory (only Elpida memory is support atm).
• It has Full-HD. (missed that on x2xx).

Looking under the hood. The x1 carbon gen1 look very likely as x230.

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.

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.

 

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.

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

Hello everyone, in the following post I’m going to recap all that I’ve managed to accomplish during the GSoC of this year.

As a disclaimer: I plan to maintain these patches until they are fit to be mainlined or rejected altogether in case of design flaws.

libpayload: replace cbfs_media api with region_device api

This patchset should be complete, I tested it quite thoroughly by using the API to update the bayou payload (separate patch). I'm still waiting on a review on this one so I suspect there will be some cause for nitpicks.

bayou: Adapt to the coreboot-v4 era

Changed the design of the payload to make it integrate better with the current infrastructure of coreboot. The majority of the changes have been documented in the appropriate wiki entry. The patchset is complete and working.

console/serialice: Add SerialICE

The patchset was started and the initial work was done by Patrick Rudolph.
I picked it up from there, fixed the problems that it had and tried to get it in shape. It currently works as expected, waiting on more review/feedback.

serialice: update QEMU to version 2.5
serialice: adapt serialice to work with QEMU stable-2.5

In its current state this patchset produces a working build, all the functionality seems to be intact and SerialICE produces the same output as with the old implementation. There could be some unforeseen problems with the changes in the QEMU infrastructure and it could use a cleanup.

[WIP] src: replace device_t type with pnp/pci_defn_t

This is one of the latest commits that I've worked on, it's still a work in progress but I plan to remove all the the improper uses of device_t and replace it with the appropriate type. It's probably gonna take a while and I suspect the patch is going to be massive. If anyone has any suggestion on how to handle this transition feel free to tell me.

tint: Fix tint and add Kconfig option

The payload works as intended. Only nit is that maintaining a separate patch to apply to the tint code is tricky/messy.

lib/selfboot: Replace rdev_mmap_full()

The code worked, even though it's been a while since I rebased the change to check for conflicts. Should be an easy fix anyway.

payloads: add support lz4 compression

selfboot: add sequential lz4 payload decompression

The functionality works as expected.

coreinfo: Add support to read timestamps

cbmem: share additional time stamps IDs

Code works as intended, the only thing missing are the commas that should split the timestamps in groups of 3 digits. I couldn't port that part since it relied on a recursive function that no longer worked.

elfwriter: Fix multi-phdrs ELFs parsing

cbfstool: Require "-m ARCH" to extract payloads and stages

cbfstool: Extract payload in ELF

One of the oldest patchset that I wrote, took a while to get it right but it seems to be working wonderfully.

region: Add writeat and eraseat support

Below are a bunch of minor patches that I’ve written to fix the bugs that I’ve encountered while working on the patches above or browsing the source tree:

i945.h: fix #include path

emulation/qemu-i440fx: add cmos.default file

nvramcui: refactor code

pc80/mc146818rtc.h: Replace leftover macro token

lenovo/x60: add GPIOs initialisation before dock check

serialice: update lint filters

payloads: add Kconfig option for bayou

libpayload: split "Drivers" config section in Kconfig

bayou: delete pbuilder utility

filo: Specify libpayload path

cbfstool: Allow to easily build the individual tools

If you have any question regarding these patches you can find me on IRC (avengerf12).

I wanna conclude this post by expressing my gratitude towards the coreboot’s GSoC admins and mentors for the wonderful opportunity that they have given me and to the coreboot community for all the help and suggestions.

Sincerely,

Antonello