Coreboot

Coreboot is a free and opensource firmware which aims to be fast, secure and flexible replacement for UEFI. In this guide we will learn how to install coreboot on supported devices, handling of userspace tools and the use of flashrom.

Supported Hardware
We have different types of architectures and supported Hardware. If you want to take a look at the full table, please follow this link. In the following table you can find well supported devices which are more or less new devices. If you want to use older laptop's which are blob free, use the libreboot guide.

The Basics
In general you begin to find the spi chip on the board of your selected hardware. This is important because of the vendor which locks the spi via soft lockdown.

Flasher
As flasher you can easily use a Raspberry PI B+ or v2 with a pomona SOIC-8 testclip for 40€. But there also many other programmers.

SPI flash
There are different types of SPI chips (list). The most common package for these chips is SOIC-8 which can be flashed via testclip. Sometimes you will find chips with a WSON-8 package, then you need to desolder the WSON-8 chip and resolder a new SOIC-8. If you need help with soldering ask hackerspaces near your location. SPI chips are common in sizes from 2MB - 16MB. Often vendors solder two chips to save money. A flash chip contains a flash descriptor containing something like a partition table for the spi flash with some additional properties.