Libreboot 20211122 released!

Leah Rowe

22 November 2021


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Article published by: Leah Rowe

Date of publication: 22 November 2021

Free your BIOS today!

Libreboot is free (as in freedom) boot firmware, which initializes the hardware (e.g. memory controller, CPU, peripherals) in your computer so that software can run. Libreboot then starts a bootloader to load your operating system. It replaces the proprietary BIOS/UEFI firmware typically found on a computer. Libreboot is compatible with specifical computer models that use the Intel/AMD x86 architecture. Libreboot works well with GNU+Linux and BSD operating systems.

The last Libreboot release, version 20210522, was released on May 22nd in 2021. This new release, Libreboot 20211122, is released today on November 22nd, 2021. This is yet another testing release, so expect there to be some bugs. Every effort has been made to ensure reliability on all boards, however.

You can find this release in the testing directory on Libreboot release mirrors. If you check in the stable directory, you’ll still only find the 20160907 release in there, so please ensure that you check the testing directory!

This is a bug fix release, relative to 20210522. No new boards or major features have been added, but several problems that existed in the previous release have now been fixed.

Work done since the 20210522 release:

New release schedule under consideration

The 20210522 release happened to coincide with coreboot 4.14’s release, more or less.

This release also coincides roughly with the coreboot 4.15 release, which came out on November 5th. See: https://doc.coreboot.org/releases/coreboot-4.15-relnotes.html

Coreboot has, since the 4.15 release, decided to release every 3 months instead of every 6. That means the coreboot 4.16 release is planned for February 2022.

I’m considering this: 2 releases every 3 months, of Libreboot. A testing release and then a fork of that is created, to fix bugs ready for a stable release 3 months later, while simultaneously working (in the lbmk master branch) towards another testing release. If no stable release is available at the same time as a testing release, then delay it if the delay will be minimal, otherwise cancel and abandon that particular stable branch.

So: if I do this, the next stable release of Libreboot could be in February 2022 based on bug fixes of this November 2021 release, using coreboot 4.15. A testing release could be simultaneously made, with perhaps extra features, and based on coreboot 4.16.

I’m considering it. In general, I do want Libreboot to be in sync with the coreboot project, but coreboot does not guarantee stability in their releases. Rather, releases are regarded as milestones for the coreboot developers to reflect on current developments, and plan the next few months.

When Libreboot first started, coreboot did not have a fixed release scheduled. It was purely rolling release. Coreboot however has been quite reliable with its own release schedules in the past few years, making it viable for Libreboot to also have a fixed schedule.

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