Framework 13 AMD Laptop Seeing Experimental Coreboot Port

The Framework Laptops are some great systems with their upgradeable/modular design, friendly Linux support, both Intel and AMD options, the latest models making use of an open-source embedded controller, and nice build quality. The Framework Laptops have proven very popular with Linux/open-source enthusiasts but one of the recurring critiques has been the lack of Coreboot firmware support for these laptops as an alternative (or outright replacement) to the proprietary BIOS/firmware. As a promising avenue for the future, there is experimental work being done on getting Coreboot up and running with the Framework 13 laptop powered by the AMD Ryzen 7040 series.

Martin Roth has been a Coreboot developer / firmware engineer for more than one decade and since 2022 has been continuing his Coreboot work at AMD. Martin Roth has been working on getting Coreboot running on the Framework 13 AMD laptop. However, it is important to note that AMD isn't officially sponsoring this work and this isn't likely to be officially adopted by Framework but rather is an experimental and unofficial port.

This Coreboot port to the Framework 13 does depend upon some firmware binary blobs that haven't yet been published but Martin is working with other AMD firmware developers on getting those binaries prepared for a release hopefully in the next week.

This Coreboot port is currently relying on the AMD FSP binary implementation used by prior AMD-powered Chromebooks and isn't yet on AMD's new OpenSIL open-source CPU silicon initialization codebase. Martin notes he isn't aware of when the AMD Phoenix support for OpenSIL might be publicly released and in any event will only be a proof-of-concept for this generation.

The hope is to release the Coreboot binaries soon but is -- experimental -- and those wanting to try it on a Framework 13 need to be aware of the risks. To avoid bricking the Framework 13 laptop, in the event of running into troubles you need to be comfortable enough with soldering and have an SPI ROM programmer in the event of running into any troubles with the experimental firmware.

The initial Coreboot firmware will also lack suspend support, USB4 connectivity has yet to be tested, and boot times will be longer due to needing to reinitialize the system memory on every boot. But basic functionality is otherwise working for the Framework 13 with Coreboot.

More details on the current status of this experimental Coreboot support for the Framework 13 AMD laptop via the Framework community forums. It's nice seeing this effort materialize and hopefully in future generations of the Framework Laptop will lead to possibly having official Coreboot support, which could be particularly interesting once OpenSIL is production ready and able to replace AGESA in the coming years.