Skulls - not quite Heads

pre-built coreboot images with an easy installation process

Skulls makes it easy to install an unlocked, up-to-date and easy to use coreboot-based BIOS on your laptop.

• unlocked: software update after first-time flashing / no restrictions for connected hardware
• easy to use: SeaBIOS - simply a boot menu, compatible with Windows and Linux
• up to date: Frequently a new image with the latest versions of all components

Supported Laptops

• Lenovo Thinkpad X230
• Lenovo Thinkpad X230T
• Lenovo Thinkpad T430
• Lenovo Thinkpad T530
• Lenovo Thinkpad T440p

When do we do a release?

Either when

• There is a new SeaBIOS release,
• There is a new Intel microcode release (for our CPU model),
• There is new coreboot development that affects us, or
• We change the config

How we build

• Everything necessary to build coreboot is included here
• When doing a release, we always try to upload to coreboot's board status project
• If we add out-of-tree patches, we always post them for review upstream
• The scripts to build reproducibly are based on these scripts that use the coreboot-sdk.

Alternatives

We aim to be the easiest possible coreboot distribution - both to install and to use. And since our flash image is unlocked to enable software updates, it's easy to move to alternative systems from it:

• Heads - a coreboot distribution with pre-built (or reproducibly buildable) flash images (for the X230 and others). Heads includes Linux, with tools to create a trusted boot chain using your GPG key and the TPM.
• osboot - a new coreboot distribution that wants to release pre-built images. Technically similar to Skulls and wants to release images with different payloads like GRUB too.
• libreboot - a coreboot distribution with pre-built image releases. The X230 is currently not supported (the X200 is) - libreboot images are built from free software only and include the GRUB bootloader.

Sponsors

none. become a sponsor and you can be listed here. any compensation is very much appreciated.