Build GNU Boot binaries for specific computers

This guide documents how to compile GNU Boot binaries for a specific computer.

The Building GNU Boot from source chapter of the GNU Boot manual instead documents how to build a GNU Boot release, which builds binaries for all the computers supported by GNU Boot.

If you instead want to build only a specific computer instead (like the ThinkPad X200 with 8MiB boot flash), you first need to follow the manual to setup the build.

But instead of running the following command:

make release

you can instead follow the “Building GNU Boot binaries” section below.

Building GNU Boot binaries

If you only wish to build images for a specific computer, once the GNU Build system is initialized, configured and that the build dependencies are also installed, you can use the build script (that is also used by the GNU Build system) directly:

./build boot roms x200_8mb

Here it will build images for the ThinkPad X200 with 8MiB boot flash.

You can also specify more than one argument to build for multiple computers:

./build boot roms x200_8mb x60

ROM images appear under the newly created bin/ directory in the build system.

If for any reasons, the build is interrupted, you will need to delete both the bin/ and bin-dbg/ directories if they exist, otherwise the build system will assume that the build went fine and this might create issues later on, especially if you want to build a release.

For other commands, simply read the Makefile in your favourite text editor. The Makefile is simple, because each commands run a simple script, so it’s very easy to know what commands are available by simply reading it.

Standard clean command available (cleans all modules except crossgcc):

make clean

To clean your crossgcc builds:

make crossgcc-clean

Build without using GNU Make

The Makefile is included just for compatibility, so that someone who instictively types make will get a result.

Actual development/testing is always done using the build, download, update or modify scripts directly, and this includes when building from source. Here are some instructions to get you started:

First, install build dependencies

GNU Boot includes a script that automatically installs dependencies in various distributions. It has mainly been tested on PureOS 10 (byzantium), Trisquel 10 (nabia) and Trisquel 11 (aramo):

sudo ./build install dependencies

The build script automatically runs all necessary commands; for example ./build payload grub will automatically run ./build module grub if the required utilities for GRUB are not built, to produce payloads.

As a result, you can now (after installing the correct build dependencies) run just a single command, from a fresh Git clone, to build the ROM images:

./build boot roms

or even just build specific ROM images, e.g.:

./build boot roms x60

If you wish to build payloads, you can also do that. For example:

./build payload grub

./build payload seabios

Previous steps will be performed automatically. However, you can still run individual parts of the build system manually, if you choose. This may be beneficial when you’re making changes, and you wish to test a specific part of GNU Boot.

Therefore, if you only want to build ROM images, just do the above. Otherwise, please continue reading!

Second, download all of the required software components

If you didn’t simply run ./build boot roms (with or without extra arguments), you can still perform the rest of the build process manually.

It’s as simple as that:

./download all

The above command downloads all modules defined in the GNU Boot build system. However, you can download modules individually.

This command shows you the list of available modules:

./download list

Example of downloading an individual module:

./download coreboot

./download seabios

./download grub

./download i945-thinkpads-install-utilities

Third, build all of the modules:

Building a module means that it needs to have already been downloaded. Currently, the build system does not automatically do pre-requisite steps such as this, so you must verify this yourself.

Again, very simple:

./build module all

This builds every module defined in the Libreboot build system, but you can build modules individually.

The following command lists available modules:

./build module list

Example of building specific modules:

./build module grub

./build module seabios

./build module i945-thinkpads-install-utilities

Commands are available to clean a module, which basically runs make-clean. You can list these commands:

./build clean list

Clean all modules like so:

./build clean all

Example of cleaning specific modules:

./build clean grub

./build clean cbutils

Fourth, build all of the payloads:

Very straight forward:

./build payload all

You can list available payloads like so:

./build payload list

Example of building specific payloads:

./build payload grub

./build payload seabios

The build-payload command is is a prerequsite for building ROM images.

Fifth, build the ROMs!

Run this command:

./build boot roms

Each board has its own configuration under resources/coreboot/ which specifies which payloads are supported.

By default, all ROM images are built, for all boards. If you wish to build just a specific board, you can specify the board name based on the directory name for it under resources/coreboot/. For example:

./build boot roms x60

Board names, like above, are the same as the directory names for each board, under resources/coreboot/ in the build system.

That’s it!

If all went well, ROM images should be available to you under bin/