Other coreboot distributions providing Open Source BIOS/UEFI firmware

Return to index

Libreboot is a coreboot distribution or coreboot distro, in the same way that Debian is a Linux distro. Its purpose is to provide free/opensource boot firmware, replacing proprietary BIOS/UEFI firmware, and it supports many machines.

It is a coreboot distro precisely because of its design. Libreboot’s build system automatically downloads, patches and builds all the various upstream sources such as coreboot, GRUB, SeaBIOS, U-Boot and so on. This automation is used to provide binary releases, which the user can easily install. Coreboot is notoriously difficult to configure and install, for most people, and you need a high degree of technical skill to use it; distros like Libreboot bridge this gap, making coreboot accessible to non-technical users.

Libreboot was the first coreboot distro, existing since December 2013. Many Libreboot users exist today, who would otherwise not use coreboot at all.

Coreboot is highly flexible for many configurations. It is quite possible build to your own coreboot image but most non-technical users should probably use a coreboot distro.

It’s thanks to the various coreboot distros that many people use coreboot today; without them, many otherwise non-technical users might not use coreboot at all.

Not all distros are listed; only those of high quality or otherwise of interest; quality, not quantity. In alphabetical order:

Website: https://canoeboot.org/

Git repositories: https://canoeboot.org/git.html

Canoeboot is a special fork of Libreboot; both Canoeboot and Libreboot are maintained in parallel by the same developer, Leah Rowe. Canoeboot supports far less hardware than Libreboot, but provides a pure free software coreboot distribution, due to its policy. As a result of Canoeboot’s policy, it currently only supports very old hardware.

It otherwise has the exact same design as Libreboot, and is kept in relative sync at all times, often doing releases side by side on the same days as Libreboot.

Libreboot supports more hardware than Canoeboot, due to its more pragmatic Binary Blob Reduction Policy adopted on 17 November 2022; Canoeboot is a continuation of Libreboot from prior to this, since Libreboot initially used the same dogmatic policy as Canoeboot. A small minority of users demanded it post-November 2022, so Canoeboot was born.

If you’re an absolute Free Software fanatic, Canoeboot is for you. Otherwise, if you want to use much newer hardware, Libreboot is a worthy choice. Since Canoeboot only supports much older hardware, and uses Libreboot’s old policy, you could consider Canoeboot to be legacy Libreboot. Libreboot adopted the Binary Blob Reduction Policy in November 2022, as part of a general desire to support more - and newer - hardware.

Website: https://docs.dasharo.com/

Git repositories: https://github.com/dasharo

Supports many machines, with a choice of EDK2(UEFI) or Heads(Linuxboot) payload in the flash. Some older machines may provide a SeaBIOS payload instead. A lot of work that goes into the upstream coreboot project came from the Dasharo developers.

Dasharo provides their own fork of coreboot, with a specific tree per board. Several coreboot ports (e.g. MSI Z690-A PRO) were implemented directly by the Dasharo project, and later upstreamed into the regular coreboot project.

Dasharo has a special emphasis on commercial application, providing tailored coreboot images for each supported motherboard, with an emphasis on stability. It’s a very different approach than Libreboot’s approach; Libreboot provides a more generalised design in its build system and infrastructure.

Website: https://github.com/9elements/firmware-action

Documentation: https://9elements.github.io/firmware-action/

TODO: Link their FOSDEM 2025 talk when it becomes available on archives.

Launched at the start of 2023, this project by 9elements provides a source-based package manager similar conceptually to lbmk; it downloads, patches and compiles various upstream sources, specifically coreboot, Linux, Tianocore/edk2, u-root and others.

It currently does not provide specific build targets pre-configured, nor binary releases, but it could theoretically be fashioned that way, and this was asked of them at their FOSDEM 2025 talk, during questions and answers - and much of what it’s trying to do could inspire aspects of Libreboot’s design in the future.

Their build system design is interesting, and has many of the same sort of features lbmk has, such as tracking of build artifacts / re-use of build artifacts to speed up re-builds. I (Leah Rowe, Libreboot maintainer) learned of Firmware-action because I attended their FOSDEM 2025 talk. It is listed on this page, because their build system design can be used to provide a fully fledged coreboot distribution, with binary releases.

The goal of the firmware-action project is to provide a fully reproducible build environment, for integration with a CI/CD setup during coreboot development. This build system has great potential to provide a useful competitor versus, say, Heads or LinuxBoot projects. The design of this build system could also be adapted to provide many different coreboot payloads, even ones that it currently doesn’t support, such as GNU GRUB.

Website: https://osresearch.net/

Git repositories: https://github.com/linuxboot/heads

Heads provides a LinuxBoot payload using U-Root, and has many advanced features such as TPM-based MeasuredBoot. With combined use of a FIDO key, you can easily and more reliably determine whether you boot firmware has been tampered with.

The Linux-based payload in flash uses kexec to boot another Linux kernel. It provides an easy to use boot menu, highly configurable and supports many Linux distros easily.

If you’re the sort of person who needs full disk encryption and you have a focus on security, Heads is for you. Perfect for use with something like Qubes.

Libreboot provides its own security mechanisms, but Heads is much more flexible and complete, in this regard. The only downside to Heads’s Linux-based flash setup, is that it’s basically a Linux-only coreboot distro (whereas Libreboot can boot BSD and even Windows, in some cases).

Another focus of the heads project is on reproducible builds. Its build system bootstraps a toolchain that then compiles everything else, including the coreboot crossgcc toolchain. The purpose of this is to provide matching ROM hashes on every build; for this purpose, it also auto-downloads vendor files such as Intel ME at build time, instead of requiring you to dump from the original boot firmware.

Heads’s vendorcode auto-download logic inspired Libreboot’s own vendorcode inject design; Libreboot greatly expanded on it, on more machines.

We in Libreboot have an affinity for the Heads project, and have worked with them in the past, and they with us, helping each other back and forth. Many of the machines supported in Libreboot are also supported in Heads, and vice versa, but they target different kinds of users and use-case scenarios, with Libreboot targeting a more general audience (while providing security hardening options), whereas Heads specifically targets security-conscious users.

Website: https://docs.mrchromebox.tech/

Git repositories: https://github.com/MrChromebox/

Provides a tailored EDK2(UEFI) payload on supported Chromebooks. You can use this to replace ChromeOS with a regular Linux distro or BSD system - even Windows - if you wish.

The benefit of using MrChromebox is that it provides up to date EDK2, unlike proprietary vendors who often provide old, CVE-ridden versions of EDK2 forks such as InsydeH2O.

With MrChromebox’s guidance, you can have a completely up to date UEFI firmware on your machine, and get good use out of your Chromebook for many more years, with regular security updates.

You can also use the Chrultrabook Docs which make use of MrChromebox and might prove useful.

One of Chultrabook’s maintainers, Elly, did this talk at 37C3 conference, demonstrating Chultrabook: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HFIQi835wY - and also did this more general talk about coreboot at 38C3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD9tOcf4OkA. It’s very good reference material if you want to know more about coreboot, and coreboot distros more generally.

Elly also did this interview with Brodie Robertson, about coreboot, and explains the concept of a coreboot distro in more detail in one part of the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Am_1MzJ6ZA

Libreboot largely avoids supporting Chromebooks, precisely because MrChromebox is a perfectly viable option on these machines.

Git repositories: https://github.com/merge/skulls

Skulls provides simple coreboot images with SeaBIOS payload, on a handful of Thinkpads. Libreboot also provides similar SeaBIOS configurations, on all of the same machines, but Libreboot’s design does mean that there are a few additional steps for installation. If you just want the simplest, most barebones setup, Skulls is a great choice.

Libreboot also provides U-Boot and GRUB, and has other ambitions. Libreboot aims to provide ease of use while also providing great power and flexibility. So Libreboot is aimed specifically at power users, while also trying to accomodate non-technical users; Skulls largely targets the latter.

Git repository: https://github.com/system76/firmware-open

Other repositories e.g. EC firmware: https://github.com/system76

System76 provides their own special coreboot fork, that they tailor for specific machines that they sell; they also provide free EC firmware. Jeremy Soller of System76 maintains this firmware, and the work is regularly upstreamed into the regular coreboot project.

System76 provides the coreboot firmware, along with EDK2 UEFI payload. It can boot Linux distros, BSD systems and even Windows perfectly.

Please get in touch! We’d love to link your project here.

The coreboot project also maintains its own list of coreboot distros:

https://coreboot.org/users.html

Libreboot maintains its own list, because it is felt that distros should also link to each other, since many people who find coreboot for the first time may find it through a distro (such as Libreboot) and not check coreboot’s own website. We in the Libreboot project wish to see everyone using free boot firmware, which was the primary motivation behind this page, in promoting the various projects.

This list will be populated over time. Several organisations exist out there that pertain to Free and Open Source firmware development, supporting its existence in general. Here are just a few of them:

Website: https://opensourcefirmware.foundation/

The OSFF is a non-profit organisation of Oregon, USA, whose mission it is to coordinate communication between the various free boot projects (projects like coreboot). Several coreboot developers are a part of its governance.

The OSFF also hosts an annual Open Source Firmware Conference, where various projects, companies and peoples can talk about their work in this field.

The OSFF exists precisely because nothing like it has existed before; the world of boot firmware is largely dominated by proprietary IBVs (independent BIOS vendors), the likes of e.g. AMI, Phoenix.

Organisations like OSFF are critical, if we ever wish to see libre boot firmware become the default firmware, on computers that normal people actually purchase. All the separate projects out there do great work, but it is critical that we have a central sorting ground, a point of contact if you will, to represent us, and the OSFF’s mission is to be exactly that.

OSFF also has their own list of projects, similar to the list on this page that you are reading now. See:

https://opensourcefirmware.foundation/projects/

Libreboot is currently not affiliated with the OSFF in any official capacity, but it has our full support, and we will do what we can to help it, when we can.

Although not strictly related to free/opensource firmware, the coreboot project is an SFC member, which you can see here:

https://sfconservancy.org/projects/current/

The SFC is a non-profit organisation of New York, USA, dedicated to the cause of software freedom, with a view towards Copyleft advocacy, especially copyleft compliance enforcement.

SFC provides services to member projects, such as coreboot, which you can read about here:

• https://sfconservancy.org/projects/
• https://sfconservancy.org/projects/services/

Services such as donations infrastructure, legal services (including things like copyright assignements and enforcement), advice/assistance about project governance, help with fundraising and outreach, etc.

SFC also hosts an annual conference, called FOSSY, which projects, companies and peoples can go to to promote their work on free/opensource projects. See:

https://sfconservancy.org/fossy/

Although Libreboot is not affiliated with SFC in any official capacity, it is otherwise an excellent organisation, it is listed here in honour of the excellent work it does, including its support of the coreboot project.

Website: https://www.spi-inc.org/

The SPI is a non-profit organisation of New York, USA, dedicated to the cause of software freedom. It provides fiscal sponsorship and promotion of numerous Free and Open Source projects, which you can read about here:

https://www.spi-inc.org/projects/

It provides services to member projects such as donations infrastructure, legal services, advice/assistance and oversight of project governance and general help with fundraising.

SFC most notably provides services to Debian, which is a member:

https://www.spi-inc.org/projects/debian/

Although SPI does not currently (at this time) sponsor any coreboot or firmware-related projects, several of the projects that it does support are critical for Libreboot development. For example, it also supports the Arch Linux project:

https://www.spi-inc.org/projects/archlinux/

Libreboot development, especially build testing, happens largely on computers running Debian Linux and Arch Linux, because these cover a large number of users; we also test many other distros such as Fedora or Ubuntu.

Organisations like SPI (and indeed SFC, OSFF) are critical to the general health of the Free Software movement. Without them, we would not be able to as effectively coordinate projects, especially in terms of funding.

Libreboot is not currently affiliated with the SPI in any official capacity, but they have our respect and they are listed here.

Several other projects besides coreboot provide free hardware initialisation, such as U-Boot (as own firmware, distinct from U-Boot as a coreboot payload), Trusted Firmware and so on.

Here are a few such projects:

fwupd is essentially a centralised repository of firmware images, that can be used to provide updates for your mainboard. Although not officially supported nor endorsed by the Libreboot project, many Linux distros make use of this to provide UEFI firmware updates for example.

Libreboot doesn’t use this, due to the many idiosyncrasies of Libreboot on various motherboards; however, we may use it in a limited capacity, in the future.

Website: https://www.linuxboot.org/

LinuxBoot can be provided as a UEFI DXE, or as a U-Boot SPL, coreboot payload or Slim Bootloader Stage 1B, to provide a Linux kernel at boot time, which kexecs into another Linux kernel.

The benefit of using Linux to boot Linux is that then the bootloader part of your firmware doesn’t need to rewrite every driver, because Linux already provides excellent drivers, and it also affords you many advanced configuration possibility such as hardened encryption setups with things like Measured Boot, and it could also be used to boot over a network.

Website: https://github.com/openbmc/docs

Linux distro for management controllers (BMCs) used on servers, rack switches and RAID appliances. This provides a remote management feature, most useful (for example) on colocated server hosting.

Website: https://github.com/oreboot/oreboot

Oreboot is a special fork of coreboot, re-written in the Rust programming language, focusing specifically on the LinuxBoot payload configuration.

Website: https://www.trustedfirmware.org/

Trusted Firmware provides boot firmware for ARMv8-A, ARMv9-A and ARMv8-M. Specifically tailored for use on embedded systems, and parts of it are also used by the coreboot project on some boards.

Website: https://www.u-boot.org/

U-Boot runs on a large number of embedded systems, with support for a variety of architectures such as ARM, x86, RISC-V and others. U-Boot provides its own small kernel and operating system, with drivers and applications designed to boot your operating system using various methods. It has an advanced shell, with excellent networking and file system support - most notably, we use it in Libreboot as a UEFI payload for coreboot, but U-Boot can also provide its own boot initialisation independently of coreboot.

One of the nice features of U-Boot is its licensing (GPLv2 for the most part) and similar coding style to Linux; the licensing and technical design means that it’s much easier to port existing Linux drivers, when something needs to be done in the U-boot project.

---

We would like to list various distros of these too. If you know of a cool project, please get in touch with the Libreboot project!

Markdown file for this page: https://libreboot.org/other.md

Subscribe to RSS for this site

Site map

This HTML page was generated by the Libreboot Static Site Generator.