The Coreboot project has released Coreboot 26.06, the latest version of its free and open-source firmware platform designed to replace proprietary BIOS and UEFI firmware on supported hardware.
The primary highlight is initial support for Intel Nova Lake. The release covers several boot stages, including bootblock, romstage, ramstage, and Intel FSP programming. Tooling updates include Nova Lake support in ifdtool and spd_tools.
However, this is still early work. The project explicitly notes that DDR5 is not yet supported, and some FSP workarounds remain in place while waiting for upstream fixes. In other words, this is not “Nova Lake is ready for everyone” support, but rather the first important step toward it.
For AMD, Coreboot 26.06 introduces initial support for Strix Halo. The first board using this code is the AMD Maple reference mainboard, included in this release. According to the project, this is again a work in progress and not yet intended for use on production hardware.
This release also introduces initial support for the Qualcomm Calypso SoC, building on the existing X1P42100 codebase. It establishes a basis for further development, including ARM Trusted Firmware support, PCIe enhancements, firmware loading improvements, and memory layout updates. The new Google Calypso, Mensa, and C1nv mainboards are part of this initiative.
On top of that, Coreboot 26.06 adds ROM Armor 2 support and expands A/B recovery infrastructure, including updates to PSP handling, backup SPI flash support, and new recovery partition layouts.
Boot performance improvements include optimized cached LZMA decompression, ROM3 caching on AMD, microcode caching in DRAM on Intel, and Zstd decompression support in the Intel FSP 2.0 driver. Ongoing work continues across Intel, AMD, MediaTek, and Qualcomm code paths, with enhancements in power management, memory initialization, and platform-specific features.
As always, for end users, the most important part is the newly supported mainboards. These include the Framework Laptop 13 with Intel Core Ultra Series 1, Framework Laptop 13 Pro with Intel Core Ultra Series 3, Lenovo ThinkPad X61/X61s, several Star Labs systems, two System76 models, and various ASUS and ASRock motherboards.
Among the added boards are:
- Framework Laptop 13 (Intel Core Ultra Series 1)
- Framework Laptop 13 Pro (Intel Core Ultra Series 3)
- Lenovo ThinkPad X61 / X61s
- Star Labs Byte Mk I
- Star Labs StarBook Mk VI
- System76 bonw15-b
- System76 gaze20
- ASRock H370M-ITX/ac
- ASRock Z87 Extreme6
- Several ASUS H81, H610, Z87, and Maximus VI/VII boards
There are also smaller platform improvements, such as FnLock and logo LED control for Lenovo H8-based ThinkPads, new power-profile and PCIe power-management controls for Star Labs boards, and runtime In-Band ECC control for several Intel platforms.
For more details, see the official release announcement.
