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Article published by: Leah Rowe in GNU Leah Mode™

Date of publication: 17 July 2023

This project was originally named GNU Boot or gnuboot, unofficially, with the intent that it would be re-used by the real GNU Boot project, to help them get in sync with modern Libreboot releases; on 17 July 2023, they still used very old Libreboot releases, with old coreboot revisions from around ~mid 2021.

This non-GeNUine release was renamed to nonGeNUine Boot after receiving a legal threat, citing trademark infringement from the official GNU Boot project.

More context for this is provided by the Libreboot project. See: GNU Boot article on libreboot.org

nonGeNUine Boot provides boot firmware for supported x86/ARM machines, starting a bootloader that then loads your operating system. It replaces proprietary BIOS/UEFI firmware on x86 machines, and provides an improved configuration on ARM-based chromebooks supported (U-Boot bootloader, instead of Google’s depthcharge bootloader). On x86 machines, the GRUB and SeaBIOS coreboot payloads are officially supported, provided in varying configurations per machine. It provides an automated build system for the configuration and installation of coreboot ROM images, making coreboot easier to use for non-technical people. You can find the list of supported hardware in nonGeNUine Boot documentation.

nonGeNUine Boot’s main benefit is higher boot speed, better security and more customisation options compared to most proprietary firmware. As a libre software project, the code can be audited, and coreboot does regularly audit code. The other main benefit is freedom to study, adapt and share the code, a freedom denied by most boot firmware, but not nonGeNUine Boot! Booting GNU+Linux and BSD is also well supported.

nonGeNUine Boot is a fork of Libreboot. This release is based on Libreboot 20230625, with certain boards/documentation removed so as to comply with the GNU System Distribution Guidelines (GNU FSDG).

Libreboot 20220710 was the last regular Libreboot release to comply with the old Binary Blob Extermination Policy adhering to GNU FSDG ideology. Read the Libreboot 20220710 release announcement.

For the purpose of continuity, this release will list changes relative to that version. Future releases of nonGeNUine Boot will reference past releases of itself.

These laptops would have been compatible with Libreboot, under the old policy, and they were added in this release of nonGeNUine Boot:

• Dell Latitude E6400
• ASUS Chromebook Flip C101 (gru-bob)
• Samsung Chromebook Plus (v1) (gru-kevin)

FUN FACT: This includes building of ASUS KFSN4-DRE, KCMA-D8 and KGPE-D16 boards, which were updated based on coreboot 4.11_branch. ROM images are provided for these boards, in this nonGeNUine Boot release. The toolchain in this coreboot version would not build on modern GNU+Linux distributions, so I spent time patching it.

In nonGeNUine Boot 20230717:

• Coreboot (default): commit ID e70bc423f9a2e1d13827f2703efe1f9c72549f20, 17 February 2023
• Coreboot (cros): commit ID 8da4bfe5b573f395057fbfb5a9d99b376e25c2a4 2 June 2022
• Coreboot (fam15h_udimm): commit ID 1c13f8d85c7306213cd525308ee8973e5663a3f8, 16 June 2021
• GRUB: commit ID f7564844f82b57078d601befadc438b5bc1fa01b, 14 February 2023
• SeaBIOS: commit ID ea1b7a0733906b8425d948ae94fba63c32b1d425, 20 January 2023
• U-Boot (for coreboot/cros): commit ID 890233ca5569e5787d8407596a12b9fca80952bf, 9 January 2023

In Libreboot 20220710:

• Coreboot (default): commit ID b2e8bd83647f664260120fdfc7d07cba694dd89e, 17 November 2021
• Coreboot (cros): did not exist (no ARM/U-Boot support in Libreboot 20220710)
• Coreboot (fam15h_udimm): commit ID ad983eeec76ecdb2aff4fb47baeee95ade012225, 20 November 2019
• GRUB: commit ID f7564844f82b57078d601befadc438b5bc1fa01b, 25 October 2021
• SeaBIOS: commit ID 1281e340ad1d90c0cc8e8d902bb34f1871eb48cf, 24 September 2021
• U-Boot: did not exist (no ARM/U-Boot support in Libreboot 20220710)

The changes are vast, and most of them visible directly by viewing the Libreboot git history; for reference, this nonGeNUine Boot release corresponds approximately to lbmk (LibreBoot MaKe) revision 8c7774289ca60a1144b3151344eb400a059390e0 from 16 July 2023.

And now, the changes (summarised, relative to Libreboot 20220710):

• Coreboot crossgcc downloads: when coreboot downloads acpica (for use of iasl), the old upstream links to tarballs are no longer online. Newer versions of coreboot pull from github, but nonGeNUine Boot is still using some older coreboot revisions prior to that change. The corresponding tarballs are now hosted on Libreboot rsync, and used by nonGeNUine Boot’s build system, gbmk (itself a fork of the Libreboot build system, named lbmk). (NOTE: gbmk was renamed to cbmk, when the project became Canoeboot)
• A HUGE build system audit inherited from Libreboot, has been assimilated by nonGeNUine Boot; the entire build system was re-written in a much cleaner coding style, with much stricter error handling and clear separation of logic. A lot of bugs were fixed. A LOT of bugs. Build system auditing has been the main focus, in these past 12 months.
• cros: Disable coreboot-related BL31 features. This fixes poweroff on gru chromebooks. Patch courtesy of Alper Nebi Yasak.
• u-boot: Increase EFI variable buffer size. This fixes an error where Debian’s signed shim allocates too many EFI variables to fit in the space provided, breaking the boot process in Debian. Patch courtesy Alper Nebi Yasak
• Coreboot build system: don’t warn about no-payload configuration. nonGeNUine Boot compiles ROM images without using coreboot’s payload support, instead it builds most payloads by itself and inserts them (via cbfstool) afterwards. This is more flexible, allowing greater configuration; even U-Boot is handled this way, though U-Boot at least still uses coreboot’s crossgcc toolchain collection to compile it. Patch courtesy Nicholas Chin.
• util/spkmodem-recv: New utility, forked from GNU’s implementation, then re-written to use OpenBSD style(9) programming style instead of the originally used GNU programming style, and it is uses OpenBSD pledge() when compiled on OpenBSD. Generally much cleaner coding style, with better error handling than the original GNU version (it is forked from coreboot, who forked it from GNU GRUB, with few changes made). This is a receiving client for spkmodem, which is a method coreboot provides to get a serial console via pulses on the PC speaker.
• download/coreboot: Run extra.sh directly from given coreboot tree. Unused by any boards, but could allow expanding upon patching capabilities in lbmk for specific mainboards, e.g. apply coreboot gerrit patches in a specific order that is not easy to otherwise guarantee in more generalised logic of the nonGeNUine Boot build system.
• util/e6400-flash-unlock: New utility, that disables flashing protections on Dell’s own BIOS firmware, for Dell Latitude E6400. This enables nonGeNUine Boot installation without disassembling the machine (external flashing equipment is not required). Courtesy Nicholas Chin.
• Build dependencies scripts updated for more modern distros. As of this day’s release, nonGeNUine Boot compiles perfectly in bleeding edge distros e.g. Arch Linux, whereas the previous 20220710 required using old distros e.g. Debian 10.
• cbutils: New concept, which implements: build coreboot utilities like cbfstool and include the binaries in a directory inside lbmk, to be re-used. Previously, they would be compiled in-place within the coreboot build system, often re-compiled needlessly, and the checks for whether a given util are needed were very ad-hoc: now these checks are much more robust. Very centralised approach, per coreboot tree, rather than selectively compiling specific coreboot utilities, and makes the build system logic in nonGeNUine Boot much cleaner.
• GRUB config: 30s timeout by default, which is friendlier on some desktops that have delayed keyboard input in GRUB.
• ICH9M/GM45 laptops: 256MB VRAM by default, instead of 352MB. This fixes certain performance issues, for some people, as 352MB can be very unstable.
• U-Boot patches: for gru_bob and gru_kevin chromebooks, U-Boot is used instead of Google’s own depthcharge bootloader. It has been heavily modified to avoid certain initialisation that is replaced by coreboot, in such a way that U-Boot is mainly used as a bootloader providing UEFI for compliant GNU+Linux distros and BSDs. Courtesy Alper Nebi Yasak.
• lbmk: The entire nonGeNUine Boot build system has, for the most part, been made portable; a lot of scripts now work perfectly, on POSIX-only implementations of sh (though, many dependencies still use GNU extensions, such as GNU Make, so this portability is not directly useful yet, but a stepping stone. nonGeNUine Boot eventually wants to be buildable on non-GNU, non-GNU/Linux systems, e.g. BSD systems)
• nvmutil: Lots of improvements to code quality, features, error handling. This utility was originally its own project, started by Leah Rowe, and later imported into the nonGeNUine Boot build system.
• build/boot/roms: Support cross-compiling coreboot toolchains for ARM platforms, in addition to regular x86 that was already supported. This is used for compiling U-boot as a payload, on mainboards.
• U-boot integration: at first, it was just downloading U-Boot. Board integration for ARM platforms (from coreboot) came later, e.g. ASUS Chromebook Flip C101 as mentioned above. The logic for this is forked largely from the handling of coreboot, because the interface for dealing with their build systems is largely similar, and they are largely similar projects. Courtesy Denis Carikli and Alper Nebi Yasak.
• New utility: nvmutil - can randomise the MAC address on Intel GbE NICs, for systems that use an Intel Flash Descriptor
• General build system fixes: better (and stricter) error handling
• Fixed race condition when building SeaBIOS in some setups.
• GRUB configs: only scan ATA, AHCI or both, depending on config per board. This mitigates performance issues in GRUB on certain mainboards, when scanning for grub.cfg files on the HDD/SSD.
• GRUB configs: speed optimisations by avoiding slow device enumeration in GRUB.

All of the following are believed to boot, but if you have any issues, please contact the nonGeNUine Boot project. They are:

• ASUS KGPE-D16 motherboard
• ASUS KFSN4-DRE motherboard

• ASUS KCMA-D8 motherboard
• Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2L motherboard
• Acer G43T-AM3
• Intel D510MO and D410PT motherboards
• Apple iMac 5,2

• Dell Latitude E6400 (easy to flash, no disassembly, similar hardware to X200/T400)
• ThinkPad X60 / X60S / X60 Tablet
• ThinkPad T60 (with Intel GPU)
• Lenovo ThinkPad X200 / X200S / X200 Tablet
• Lenovo ThinkPad X301
• Lenovo ThinkPad R400
• Lenovo ThinkPad T400 / T400S
• Lenovo ThinkPad T500
• Lenovo ThinkPad W500
• Lenovo ThinkPad R500
• Apple MacBook1,1 and MacBook2,1

• ASUS Chromebook Flip C101 (gru-bob)
• Samsung Chromebook Plus (v1) (gru-kevin)

This website, that you are reading now, and the nonGeNUine release itself, was originally named GNU Boot, but clearly marked as unofficial, with the hope that the GNU project would adapt and re-use it for their project. I did this, specifically to help them get up to date. They currently use Libreboot from about 8 months ago (late 2022), and that revision used coreboot releases from ~mid 2021.

Modern Libreboot uses coreboot from early 2023, and contains many bug fixes in its build system, owing to an extensive build system audit; GNU Boot still contains all of the bugs that existed, prior to the audit. Bugs such as: errors literally not being handled, in many critical areas of the build system, due to improper use of subshells within shell scripts (Libreboot’s build system is implemented with shell scripts), improper handling of git credentials in the coreboot build system, fam15h boards no longer compiling correct on modern Linux distros… the list goes on. All fixed, in newer Libreboot, including the recent release.

The GNU Boot people actually sent me a cease and desist email, citing trademark infringement. Amazing.

Despite the original site clearly stating that it’s unofficial. I literally made it to help them. You know, to help them use newer Libreboot because they use old Libreboot and even older coreboot.

Anyway, I complied with their polite request and have renamed the project to nonGeNUine Boot. The release archive was re-compiled, under this new brand name and this nonGeNUine website was re-written accordingly.

Personally, I like the new name better.

Here is a screenshot of the cease and desist request that I received, from Adrien ‘neox’ Bourmault who is a founding member of the GNU Boot project:

This, after they themselves tried to steal the name Libreboot for their fork, when they first announced themselves on 19 March 2023 at LibrePlanet, only renaming to GNU Boot months later (on 11 June 2023). Utter hypocrisy, and a great irony to boot.

I may very well send patches. If I want to.

The following binary blobs were overlooked, and are still present in the release archive for Canoeboot up to 20231101; this mistake was corrected, in the Canoeboot 20231103 release, so you should use that or newer if you don’t want these files. They are, thus:

• src/coreboot/default/3rdparty/stm/Test/FrmPkg/Core/Init/Dmar.h
• src/coreboot/fam15h_rdimm/src/vendorcode/intel/fsp1_0/baytrail/absf/minnowmax_1gb.absf
• src/coreboot/fam15h_rdimm/src/vendorcode/intel/fsp1_0/baytrail/absf/minnowmax_2gb.absf
• src/coreboot/fam15h_udimm/src/vendorcode/intel/fsp1_0/baytrail/absf/minnowmax_1gb.absf
• src/coreboot/fam15h_udimm/src/vendorcode/intel/fsp1_0/baytrail/absf/minnowmax_2gb.absf
• src/pico-sdk/lib/tinyusb/hw/mcu/nordic/nrf5x/s140_nrf52_6.1.1_API/include/ble.h
• src/pico-sdk/lib/tinyusb/hw/mcu/nordic/nrf5x/s140_nrf52_6.1.1_API/include/ble_err.h
• src/pico-sdk/lib/tinyusb/hw/mcu/nordic/nrf5x/s140_nrf52_6.1.1_API/include/ble_gap.h
• src/pico-sdk/lib/tinyusb/hw/mcu/nordic/nrf5x/s140_nrf52_6.1.1_API/include/ble_gatt.h
• src/pico-sdk/lib/tinyusb/hw/mcu/nordic/nrf5x/s140_nrf52_6.1.1_API/include/ble_gattc.h
• src/pico-sdk/lib/tinyusb/hw/mcu/nordic/nrf5x/s140_nrf52_6.1.1_API/include/ble_gatts.h
• src/pico-sdk/lib/tinyusb/hw/mcu/nordic/nrf5x/s140_nrf52_6.1.1_API/include/ble_hci.h
• src/pico-sdk/lib/tinyusb/hw/mcu/nordic/nrf5x/s140_nrf52_6.1.1_API/include/ble_l2cap.h
• src/pico-sdk/lib/tinyusb/hw/mcu/nordic/nrf5x/s140_nrf52_6.1.1_API/include/ble_ranges.h
• src/pico-sdk/lib/tinyusb/hw/mcu/nordic/nrf5x/s140_nrf52_6.1.1_API/include/ble_types.h
• src/pico-sdk/lib/tinyusb/hw/mcu/nordic/nrf5x/s140_nrf52_6.1.1_API/include/nrf_error.h
• src/pico-sdk/lib/tinyusb/hw/mcu/nordic/nrf5x/s140_nrf52_6.1.1_API/include/nrf_error_sdm.h
• src/pico-sdk/lib/tinyusb/hw/mcu/nordic/nrf5x/s140_nrf52_6.1.1_API/include/nrf_error_soc.h
• src/pico-sdk/lib/tinyusb/hw/mcu/nordic/nrf5x/s140_nrf52_6.1.1_API/include/nrf_nvic.h
• src/pico-sdk/lib/tinyusb/hw/mcu/nordic/nrf5x/s140_nrf52_6.1.1_API/include/nrf_sdm.h
• src/pico-sdk/lib/tinyusb/hw/mcu/nordic/nrf5x/s140_nrf52_6.1.1_API/include/nrf_soc.h
• src/pico-sdk/lib/tinyusb/hw/mcu/nordic/nrf5x/s140_nrf52_6.1.1_API/include/nrf_svc.h
• src/pico-sdk/lib/tinyusb/hw/mcu/nordic/nrf5x/s140_nrf52_6.1.1_API/include/nrf52/nrf_mbr.h

Thanks go to Craig Topham, who is the Copyright and Licensing Associate at the Free Software Foundation; you can find his entry on the FSF staff page. Craig is the one who reported these.

The Canoeboot 20231026 and 20231101 release tarballs will not be altered, but errata has now been added to the announcement pages for those releases, to let people know of the above issue.

You are advised, therefore, to use the Canoeboot 20231103 release.

This file was also overlooked, and is still present in the release tarball:

• src/vendorcode/amd/agesa/f12/Proc/GNB/Nb/Family/LN/F12NbSmuFirmware.h

This has now been removed, in the Canoeboot git repository (cbmk.git), and this file will absent, in the next release after Canoeboot 20231107. Thanks go to Denis Carikli who reported this. The patch to fix it is here:

https://codeberg.org/canoeboot/cbmk/commit/70d0dbec733c5552f8cd6fb711809935c8f3d2f3

Markdown file for this page: https://canoeboot.org/news/nongenuineboot20230717.md

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