PC ENGINES

Release notes

Release notes describing changes, fixes and known issues in PC Engines apux releases.

OS status

Some operating system have problems running with different storage medias. These table shows currently tested systems on BIOS v4.9.0.x with corresponding medias:

OS	SD card	SATA disk	mSATA disk	USB stick
Voyage	(1)	OK	OK	OK(2)
Debian	OK	OK	OK	OK(2)
OPNSense	OK	OK	OK	OK(2)
pfSense	OK	OK(*)	OK	OK(2)

^* - works well with BIOS v4.6.8 or later in mainline and all legacy releases; for v4.6.7 and older mainline versions issues with installation and system functionality (installation break, unwanted reboots), can be fixed by adding a hint hint.ahci.0.msi="0", for more information see this document

⁽²⁾ - all apu boards have problems with USB 3.x stick detection in BIOS, system is working properly, but after reboot/warmboot/coldboot USB stick may not appear in BIOS boot menu (depends on the stick, well working sticks are mentioned in this document)

⁽¹⁾ - Voyage Linux is bootable on SD card and works well in read-only mode, remounting as read-write and writing changes to SD sometimes results in kernel panic which often leads to non-operable system

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• Fixed/added:
1. rebased with official coreboot repository commit 28def8b
2. updated SeaBIOS to rel-1.12.1.1 with new TPM menu option
3. prepared procedure for mitigating ROCA TPM vulnerability
4. prepared a procedure for safe and remote firmware update
• Known issues:
1. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots
2. booting with 2 USB 3.x sticks plugged in apu4 sometimes results in detecting only 1 stick
3. certain USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
4. booting Xen is unstable

• Fixed/added:
1. rebased with official coreboot repository commit 7a732b4
2. sortbootorder updated to v4.6.13 introducing CPU boost runtime configuration
3. release firmware is now built with coreboot SDK 1.52
4. configured pull-ups on WLAN_DISABLE# pins on the mPCIe connectors which could cause issues with certain modems when floating
5. fixed microcode update option in menuconfig
6. added information about ECC memory capability in SMBIOS tables on 4GB platforms
7. added interrupt configuration entries for PCIe bridge devices 2.4 and 2.5
8. reproducible builds limiation has been eliminated by setting fixed revisions for iPXE and Memtest86+.
• Known issues:
1. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots
2. booting with 2 USB 3.x sticks plugged in apu4 sometimes results in detecting only 1 stick
3. certain USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
4. booting Xen is unstable

• Fixed/added:
1. enabled Core Performance Boost feature
2. rebased with official coreboot repository commit 2b2325e
3. removed AGESA headers changes introduced with 1.0.0.A
• Known issues:
1. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots
2. booting with 2 USB 3.x sticks plugged in apu4 sometimes results in detecting only 1 stick
3. certain USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
4. booting Xen is unstable
5. Reproducible builds limiation - currently set iPXE and Memtest86+ master revisions do not guarantee the build reproducibility in long term. Correct revisions will be set in v4.9.0.3.

• Fixed/added:
1. rebased with official coreboot repository commit cd26f08
2. updated SeaBIOS to rel-1.12.0.1
3. prepared apu1 platform for TPM usage
4. enabled TPM2.0 module on apu1, apu2 and apu5 in default configuration
5. disabled waiting for SVI2 command completion causing reboot hangs
6. introduced reproducible builds by passing build ID to iPXE
7. AGESA AmdInitLate error caused by AGESA bugs
• Known issues:
1. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots
2. booting with 2 USB 3.x sticks plugged in apu4 sometimes results in detecting only 1 stick
3. certain USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
4. booting Xen is unstable

• Fixed/added:
1. coreboot: added experimental option for adding microcode update
2. coreboot: enabled PCIe ACS and AER capabilities
3. coreboot: added COM2 redirection runtime configuration
4. coreboot: fixed generating serial number from MAC address of first NIC
5. coreboot: synced and rebased with coreboot official repo commit 26d706b
6. sortbootorder: fixed BIOS WP feature for different Winbond chips
7. sortbootorder: BIOS WP is now set after saving bootorder changes
8. sortbootorder: set SRP bit on Macronix SPI (apu1) when enabling BIOS WP
• Known issues:
1. CPU frequency is stuck at low frequencies and does not react to stressin"
2. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots
3. booting with 2 USB 3.x sticks plugged in apu4 sometimes results in detecting only 1 stick
4. certain USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
5. booting Xen is unstable
6. platforms happen to hang after reboot

• Fixed/added:
1. SeaBIOS: updated to rel-1.11.0.6
2. coreboot: added console output redirection to COM2 option
3. coreboot: synced and rebased with coreboot official repo commit de46280
• Known issues:
1. CPU frequency is stuck at low frequencies and does not react to stressin"
2. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots
3. booting with 2 USB 3.x sticks plugged in apu4 sometimes results in detecting only 1 stick
4. certain USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
5. booting Xen is unstable
6. platforms happen to hang after reboot

• Fixed/added:
1. Updated sortbootorder to v4.6.11
2. Removed custom libpayload modifications
3. Synced and rebased with coreboot official repo commit b7b085d
4. ECC exclusion range, ECC now works properly. For details see also 3mdeb blog post about enabling ECC on PC Engines apu platforms.
5. Fixed apu1 bootorder PCI paths and letter assignments
6. firmware release date in DMI tables has been corrected to conform SMBIOS specification
• Known issues:
1. CPU frequency is stuck at low frequencies and does not react to stressin"
2. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots
3. booting with 2 USB 3.x sticks plugged in apu4 sometimes results in detecting only 1 stick
4. certain USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
5. booting Xen is unstable
6. platforms happen to hang after reboot

• Fixed/added:
1. Synced and rebased with coreboot official repo commit e27c096
2. iPXE revision to master
3. iPXE autoboot is enabled for all interfaces
• Known issues:
1. changing bootorder on apu1 does not work
2. wrong firmware version on apu1
3. broken serial console in SeaBIOS on apu1
4. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots
5. booting with 2 USB 3.x sticks plugged in apu4 sometimes results in detecting only 1 stick
6. certain USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
7. booting Xen is unstable
8. platforms happen to hang after reboot

• Fixed/added:
1. synced and rebased with coreboot official repo commit c8e974f
2. change of date format in sign of life string now applies only to PC Engines
3. use CONFIG_LOCALVERSION as a coreboot version string
4. double sign-of-life during power on
5. enabled IOMMU
• Known issues:
1. changing bootorder on apu1 does not work
2. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots
3. booting with 2 USB 3.x sticks plugged in apu4 sometimes results in detecting only 1 stick
4. certain USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
5. booting Xen is unstable
6. platforms happen to hang after reboot

• Fixed/added:
1. synced and rebased with coreboot official repo commit afc74ca
• Known issues:
1. changing bootorder on apu1 does not work
2. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots
3. booting with 2 USB 3.x sticks plugged in apu4 sometimes results in detecting only 1 stick
4. certain USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu

• Fixed/added:
1. Rebased coreboot repository to official coreboot 4.8.0
• Known issues:
1. changing bootorder on apu1 does not work
2. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots
3. booting with 2 USB 3.x sticks plugged in apu4 sometimes results in detecting only 1 stick
4. certain USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu

• Fixed/added:
1. Updated SeaBIOS to 1.11.0.5
2. Updated sortbootorder to v4.6.9
3. S1 button support for apu5b
• Known issues:
1. changing bootorder on apu1 does not work
2. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots
3. booting with 2 USB 3.x sticks plugged in apu4 sometimes results in detecting only 1 stick
4. certain USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu

• Fixed/added:
1. infrastructure to include microcode update
2. support for new building system pce-fw-builder
3. building is now possible with official coreboot-sdk container
4. retrieving board serial number
• Known issues:
1. changing bootorder on apu1 does not work
2. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots
3. booting with 2 USB 3.x sticks plugged in apu4 sometimes results in detecting only 1 stick
4. certain USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu

• Fixed/added:
1. support for apu1
2. S1 button feature (serial console enable)
3. switched SATA controller mode from IDE to AHCI mode
• Known issues:
1. changing bootorder on apu1 does not work
2. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots
3. booting with 2 USB 3.x sticks plugged in apu4 sometimes results in detecting only 1 stick
4. certain USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu

• Fixed/added:
1. SD card low performance
2. SMBIOS wrong entries
3. xHCi is enabled (timeouts has been adjusted in SeaBIOS, as a result USB 3.x sticks detection rate increased)
• Known issues:
1. pfSense installation may fail on hard disks - workaround
2. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots

• Fixed/added:
1. SeaBIOS 1.11.0.3 - enabled UDMA for faster boot, fixed serial console disable bug
2. screen is refreshed properly in Memtest86+
• Known issues:
1. pfSense installation may fail on hard disks
2. pfSense can not be installed from USB due to xHCi disabled
3. USB 3.x sticks are handled like USB 2.0 sticks, but are detected
4. wrong names in SMBIOS causes some modules not being loaded on certain OSes
5. SD card performance is lower than in legacy releases
6. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots

• Fixed/added:
1. SeaBIOS 1.11.0.2 - fixes bug with serial console output shift
2. disabled xHCI, force EHCI controller on front ports
• Known issues:
1. pfSense installation may fail on hard disks
2. pfSense can not be installed from USB due to xHCi disabled
3. USB 3.x sticks are handled like USB 2.0 sticks, but are detected
4. wrong names in SMBIOS causes some modules not being loaded on certain OSes
5. refreshing screen dos not work properly in Memtest86+
6. serial console disable option does not affect SeaBIOS
7. SD card performance is lower than in legacy releases
8. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots

• Fixed/added:
1. apu4 support
2. updated SeaBIOS 1.11.0.1 (removed sgabios)
3. Memtest86+ is built from coreboot Memtest86+ repository
• Known issues:
1. pfSense installation may fail on hard disks - workaround
2. USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
3. wrong names in SMBIOS causes some modules not being loaded on certain OSes
4. restoring default configuration in sortbootorder works only for bootorder
5. refreshing screen dos not work properly in Memtest86+
6. serial console disable option does not affect SeaBIOS
7. SeaBIOS serial console output is sometimes wrongly shifted
8. SD card performance is lower than in legacy releases
9. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots

• Fixed/added:
1. UARTc/c and mPCIe2 CLK enable/disable runtime configuration works now
• Known issues:
1. pfSense installation may fail on hard disks - workaround
2. USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
3. wrong names in SMBIOS causes some modules not being loaded on certain OSes
4. restoring default configuration in sortbootorder works only for bootorder
5. SD card performance is lower than in legacy releases
6. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots

• Fixed/added:
1. date format in sign-of-life string
2. Memtest86+ does nto hang now
• Known issues:
1. pfSense installation may fail on hard disks - workaround
2. USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
3. wrong names in SMBIOS causes some modules not being loaded on certain OSes
4. UARTc/c and mPCIe2 CLK enable/disable runtime configuration do not work
5. restoring default configuration in sortbootorder works only for bootorder
6. SD card performance is lower than in legacy releases
7. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots

• Fixed/added:
1. apu5 support
• Known issues:
1. pfSense installation may fail on hard disks - workaround
2. USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
3. wrong names in SMBIOS causes some modules not being loaded on certain OSes
4. Memtest86+ hangs
5. UARTc/c and mPCIe2 CLK enable/disable runtime configuration do not work
6. restoring default configuration in sortbootorder works only for bootorder
7. SD card performance is lower than in legacy releases
8. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots

• Fixed/added:
1. enabled Core Performance Boost feature
• Known issues:
1. certain USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
2. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots

• Fixed/added:
1. enabled Core Performance Boost feature
• Known issues:
1. certain USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
2. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots
3. Reproducible builds limiation - currently set iPXE and Memtest86+ master revisions do not guarantee the build reproducibility in long term. Correct revisions will be set in v4.0.25.

• Fixed/added:
1. enabled ECC
2. disabled EHCI0 controller on apu2 which caused problems with pfSense booting
3. updated SeaBIOS to rel-1.12.0.1
4. introduced reproducible builds by providing build ID to iPXE
• Known issues:
1. certain USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
2. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots

• Fixed/added:
1. coreboot: added experimental option for adding microcode update
2. coreboot: added COM2 redirection runtime configuration
3. coreboot: fixed generating serial number from MAC address of first NIC
4. sortbootorder: fixed BIOS WP feature for different Winbond chips
5. sortbootorder: BIOS WP is now set after saving bootorder changes
6. sortbootorder: set SRP bit on Macronix SPI (apu1) when enabling BIOS WP
• Known issues:
1. certain USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
2. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots
3. Sometimes pfSense hangs during boot on boards with legacy firmware when no USB stick present. Plugging USB stick workarounds the issue. Problem is during investigation.

• Fixed/added:
1. SeaBIOS: updated to rel-1.11.0.6
2. coreboot: fixed release date format in DMI tables
3. coreboot: added console output redirection to COM2 option
• Known issues:
1. certain USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
2. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots
3. Sometimes pfSense hangs during boot on boards with legacy firmware when no USB stick present. Plugging USB stick workarounds the issue. Problem is during investigation.

• Fixed/added:
1. Updated sortbootorder to v4.6.11
• Known issues:
1. certain USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
2. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots

• Fixed/added:
1. Enabled autoboot for all interfaces in iPXE
• Known issues:
1. pfSense 2.4.x fails to boot when no USB stick is plugged
2. certain USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
3. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots

• Fixed/added:
1. Updated SeaBIOS to 1.11.0.5
2. Updated sortbootorder to v4.6.9
3. S1 button support for apu5b
• Known issues:
1. certain USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
2. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots

• Fixed/added:
1. infrastructure to include microcode update
2. support for new building system pce-fw-builder
3. Memtest86+ is now a part of coreboot build system and does not have to be built externally
• Known issues:
1. certain USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
2. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots

• Fixed/added:
1. S1 button feature (serial console enable)
2. apu4 support
• Known issues:
1. certain USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
2. Serial console can not be enabled yet on apu3 using S1 button
3. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots

• Fixed/added:
1. fixed Kconfig default options for SeaBIOS repo, console loglevel
2. SMBIOS wrong entries
3. restoring default features in sortbootorder available now
4. iPXE is built from official iPXE repository, no need to build it externally
5. updated SeaBIOS to 1.11.0.3 (xHCI timeouts adjusted - USB 3.x sticks detection rate increased)
• Known issues:
1. USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
2. Serial console can not be enabled using S1 button
3. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots

• Fixed/added:
1. updated SeaBIOS to 1.11.0.2 (removed sgabios)
2. iPXE is built from official iPXE repository
• Known issues:
1. USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
2. wrong names in SMBIOS causes some modules not being loaded on certain OSes
3. restoring default configuration in sortbootorder works only for bootorder
4. Serial console can be disabled only in coreboot and can not be enabled using S1 button
5. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots

• Fixed/added:
1. fixed date format in sign-of-life string
2. removed duplicated sign-of-life
3. sign-of-life do appears right after power on now
• Known issues:
1. USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
2. wrong names in SMBIOS causes some modules not being loaded on certain OSes
3. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots

• Fixed/added:
1. apu5 support
• Known issues:
1. USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
2. wrong names in SMBIOS causes some modules not being loaded on certain OSes
3. restoring default configuration in sortbootorder works only for bootorder
4. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots

• Fixed/added:
1. force mPCIe2 CLK option in sortbootorder
• Known issues:
1. USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
2. restoring default configuration in sortbootorder works only for bootorder
3. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots

• Fixed/added:
1. sortbootorder is now available in Kconfig
• Known issues:
1. USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
2. restoring default configuration in sortbootorder works only for bootorder
3. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots

• Fixed/added:
1. minor fixes to sortbootorder used letters
• Known issues:
1. USB 3.x sticks happen to not appear in boot menu
2. restoring default configuration in sortbootorder works only for bootorder
3. some PCIe cards are not detected on certain OSes and/or in certain mPCIe slots