Free, Libre BIOS/UEFI boot firmware

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Canoeboot is a coreboot distribution (coreboot distro), in the same way that there are distributions of freedom-respecting operating systems containing the kernel named Linux. Canoeboot provides free (libre) boot firmware based on coreboot, replacing proprietary BIOS/UEFI firmware on specific Intel/AMD x86 and ARM based motherboards, including laptop and desktop computers. It initialises the hardware (e.g. memory controller, CPU, peripherals) and starts a bootloader for your operating system (OS). Systems containing Linux and BSD are well-supported; any UEFI-compliant operating system will boot, via Canoeboot’s EDK2 UEFI payload. Help is available via #canoeboot on Libera IRC.

Canoeboot provides a deblobbed version of coreboot, which is nominally free software but still contains some binary blobs for certain boards; Canoeboot strips out the blobs, to provide a wholly free distribution of coreboot. This means lower hardware support, but Canoeboot is intended for those purists who only want Free Software installed onto their computer.

Canoeboot provides GNU boot loader “GRUB” and SeaBIOS payloads on x86/x86_64 Intel/AMD motherboards, and a U-Boot UEFI payload for coreboot on ARM64(Aarch64) motherboards. An x86/x86_64 EDK2 UEFI payload is also available on some boards. The x86, x86_64 and arm64 U-Boot payloads provide a lightweight UEFI boot implementation. Canoeboot’s design incorporates all of these payloads in a single image, and you choose one at boot time.

NEW RELEASE: The latest release is Canoeboot 26.11, released on 2 November 2026. See: Canoeboot 26.11 release announcement.

We believe the freedom to study, share, modify and use software, without any restriction, is one of the fundamental human rights that everyone must have. In this context, software freedom matters. Your freedom matters. Education matters. Right to repair matters; Canoeboot lets you continue to use your hardware, with continued firmware updates. All of this is why Canoeboot exists.

Canoeboot provides coreboot for machine initialisation, which then jumps to a payload in the boot flash; coreboot works with many payloads, which boot your operating system e.g. BSD, and it can also boot the kernel named Linux.

Canoeboot makes coreboot easy to use for non-technical users, by providing a fully automated build system, automated build process and user-friendly installation instructions, in addition to regular binary releases that provide pre-compiled ROM images for installation on supported hardware. Without automation such as that provided by Canoeboot, coreboot would be inaccessible for most users; you can also still reconfigure Canoeboot however you wish.

If you’re already inclined towards free software, maybe already a coreboot user, Canoeboot makes it easier to either get started or otherwise maintain coreboot on your machine, via build automation. It provides regular tested releases, pre-assembled, often with certain patches on top of coreboot (and other code) to ensure stability. By comparison, coreboot uses a rolling-release model, with a snapshot of the codebase every few months; it is very much developer-oriented, whereas Canoeboot is specifically crafted for end users. In other words, the purpose of Canoeboot is to Just Work. Direct configuration and installation of coreboot is also possible, but Canoeboot makes it much easier.

Canoeboot gives you Free Software that you otherwise can’t get with most other boot firmware, plus faster boot speeds and better security. It’s extremely powerful and configurable for many use cases. If you’re unhappy with the restrictions (not to mention, security issues) imposed on you by proprietary BIOS vendors, then Canoeboot is one possible choice for you. Since it inherits coreboot, it doesn’t have any known backdoors in the code, nor does it contain legacy cruft from the 1980s. Canoeboot provides a sleek, fast boot experience for BSD systems and systems containing Linux, based on coreboot which is regularly audited and improved.

Canoeboot is more reliable than proprietary firmware. Many people use proprietary (non-libre) boot firmware, even if they use a libre OS. Proprietary firmware often contains backdoors, and can be buggy. The Canoeboot project was founded in October 2023, with the express purpose of making coreboot firmware accessible for non-technical users.

Canoeboot is a free software project, with a focus on helping users escape proprietary boot firmware; we ourselves want to live in a world where all software is free, and so, Canoeboot is an effort to help get closer to that world. Unlike the big vendors, we don’t try to stifle you in any way, nor do we see you as a security threat; we regard the ability to use, study, modify and redistribute software freely to be a human right that everyone must have. Extended to computers, these are products that you purchased, and so you should have the freedom to change them in any way you like. When you see Intel talk about their Boot Guard (which prevents coreboot by only letting firmware signed by them be executed) or other vendors imposing similar restrictions, and you hear them talk about “security”, they are only talking about their security, not yours. In the Canoeboot project, it is reversed; we see Intel Boot Guard and similar such technologies as an attack on your freedom over your own property (your computer), and so, we make it our mission to help you wrest back such control.

In fact, Canoeboot tries to stay as close to stock coreboot as possible, for each board, but with many different types of configuration provided automatically by the Canoeboot build system.

In the same way that there are distributions, Canoeboot is a coreboot distribution. If you want to build a ROM image from scratch, you otherwise have to perform expert-level configuration of coreboot, GRUB and whatever other software you need, to prepare the ROM image. With Canoeboot, you can literally download from Git or a source archive, and run a simple script, and it will build entire ROM images. An automated build system, named cbmk (CanoeBoot MaKe), builds these ROM images automatically, without any user input or intervention required. Configuration has already been performed in advance.

If you were to build regular coreboot, without using Canoeboot’s automated build system, it would require a lot more intervention and decent technical knowledge to produce a working configuration.

Regular binary releases of Canoeboot provide these ROM images pre-compiled, and you can simply install them, with no special knowledge or skill except the ability to follow simplified instructions, written for non-technical users.

SPDX-License-Identifier: GFDL-1.3-or-later

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