Developer ports bios alternative Coreboot to MSI Pro Z690-A motherboard

A developer has ported Coreboot to a consumer motherboard for Alder Lake processors. The developer managed to provide an MSI Pro Z690-A WiFi DDR4 with the open source bios alternative. A firmware distribution for the board will be released soon.

The Coreboot implementation for the Pro Z690-A is made by firmware developer 3MDEB, also writes tech website Phoronix. This makes it the first consumer Alder Lake motherboard to support this firmware. In any case, it is quite rare for Coreboot to be ported to consumer hardware. For now, it mainly works on older platforms and laptops, such as old ThinkPads and motherboards for Intel CPUs from several generations ago, writes Phoronix. Many Chrome OS devices also use Coreboot by default.

3mdeb makes the Coreboot port available through the Dasharo firmware distribution, that shares images on Twitter on which an Ubuntu 20.04 installer is booted via Coreboot on the MSI motherboard. For now it is an early version, but soon a Dasharo release should be released for the motherboard, with USB, display and uefi boot functionality. Dasharo indicates it is looking for hardware enthusiasts willing to beta test Coreboot on Alder Lake hardware.

Coreboot is an open source alternative to the closed uefi and bios firmware that comes standard with motherboards. It must be relatively ‘light’, whereby as few tasks as possible are performed to load an OS. This should, among other things, ensure shorter boat times. Coreboot also emphasizes good security and as few closed ‘blobs’ as possible.

The MSI motherboard in question