I’ve just posted the first release candidate for PureBoot 29, including a number of features and fixes:
* Rebased on Heads upstream master branch (c9e067c7)
* exFAT is now supported for USB media (fixes mounting some USB flash drives)
* Debug output can now be enabled in the configuration menu
* Future firmware updates can be checked for integrity automatically when flashing
* When performing OEM/factory reset with custom configuration, the GPG private key can be backed up to an encrypted flash drive partition
* Update coreboot to 4.22-Purism-1
* Librem Mini v1/v2: Fixed a remaining source of S3 resume failures
* PureBoot now has a bootsplash (built into the ROM)
* Automatic boot timeout can be set from the configuration menu (disabled, or 1/5/10 seconds)
* Sealing HOTP presents a message if /boot can't be mounted instead of dropping to the recovery shell
* Flashing a ROM shows a message if the USB drive or ROM is unreadable
* USB keyboard support can be enabled on laptops in the configuration menu
* Root file hashing now supports Qubes default partition layout (LUKS and LVM, using root volume)
I have run essential tests on all devices to ensure you’ll be able to flash back to the prior release and boot from USB in case of a problem. I haven’t run any other tests yet, so please only run this on systems where some breakage is acceptable until more testing is done.
EDIT: Librem Mini v1/v2 have problems with SATA (always) and NVMe (resuming from suspend) in RC1, please wait until RC2 for these devices. If you already flashed RC1, flash back to the current release, shut down, unplug power, then plug in again. (Unplug is needed as this problem persists through S5 soft-off.)
You can get the release candidate firmware using coreboot_util.sh from the branch for this release:
mkdir ~/updates
cd ~/updates
wget https://source.puri.sm/firmware/utility/-/raw/PureBoot-Release-29/coreboot_util.sh
sudo bash coreboot_util.sh
Revert to the current release by using the usual update instructions.
It’ll take some time to test and release coreboot/SeaBIOS 4.22.01-Purism-1, and then to run all tests on PureBoot 29, so this will be in release candidate status for a while. I’ve already noted some benign exFAT messages that need to be silenced when mounting non-exFAT media.
If you try it, please post or send in your feedback!