A Modern Server Motherboard Is Now Supported By Coreboot/Libreboot

One of the frequent complaints about Coreboot/Libreboot when ported to new hardware (sans Chromebooks) is that it's often for rather old laptops or motherboards that are a number of years old and generally not even being still manufactured. To much pleasure, there's now a (AMD) server motherboard that's still in production and will work with Libreboot for initializing the system without requiring any proprietary blobs.

This motherboard is the ASUS KGPE-D16 and supports up to two Opteron 6100/6200/6300 processors. This high-end server motherboard uses the SR5690 + SP5100 and has 16 memory slots, various PCI-E ports, and has integrated graphics backed by the Aspeed AST2050.

I was informed this morning that the ASUS KGPE-D16 will now work with the latest Libreboot code for blob-free hardware boot-up thanks to the porting effort that was sponsored work done by Raptor Engineering. As outlined via this page, nearly all functionality should be working with Libreboot or Coreboot. More details can also be found via this Libreboot.org page.

Minifree is now selling this motherboard as the Libreboot D16 that is pre-loaded with Libreboot rather than the default proprietary BIOS. However, buying it pre-flashed will set you back €1,198.00 ($1358 USD) (Update: They've now lowered the price to 798). If you don't mind flashing the board yourself, you can buy this AMD SSI motherboard for $412 USD at Amazon.com brand new and is offered for a similar price elsewhere.