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Dasharo firmware building guide

Intro

This guide shows how to build Dasharo firmware for NovaCustom devices.

Requirements

This guide was verified on Ubuntu 22.04. In practice, any Linux distribution with Docker support should be enough to complete it.

Make sure that you have following packages installed:

Laptops consist of two firmware components:

Build Dasharo EC firmware

  1. Clone the Dasharo ec repository:

    git clone https://github.com/Dasharo/ec.git

  2. Navigate to the source code directory and checkout to the desired revision:

    cd ec

    Replace X.Y.Z with a valid version

    Warning

    Releases predating ns5x_adl_v1.7.0, i.e. earlier than October 2023, might not build in custom shells on OS'es other than Fedora. In such case, it is recommended to run bash before build.sh. See issue #407.

    git checkout novacustom_v540tu_vX.Y.Z

    git checkout novacustom_v560tu_vX.Y.Z

    git checkout novacustom_ns5x_adl_vX.Y.Z

    git checkout novacustom_nv4x_adl_vX.Y.Z

    git checkout novacustom_ns5x_tgl_vX.Y.Z

    git checkout novacustom_nv4x_tgl_vX.Y.Z

  3. Checkout submodules:

    git submodule update --init --recursive --checkout

  4. Build the EC firmware:

    EC_BOARD_VENDOR=novacustom EC_BOARD_MODEL=v540tu ./build.sh

    The resulting image will be placed in: novacustom_v540tu_ec.rom.

    EC_BOARD_VENDOR=novacustom EC_BOARD_MODEL=v560tu ./build.sh

    The resulting image will be placed in: novacustom_v560tu_ec.rom.

    EC_BOARD_VENDOR=novacustom EC_BOARD_MODEL=ns5x_adl ./build.sh

    The resulting image will be placed in: novacustom_ns5x_adl_ec.rom.

    EC_BOARD_VENDOR=novacustom EC_BOARD_MODEL=nv4x_adl ./build.sh

    The resulting image will be placed in: novacustom_nv4x_adl_ec.rom.

    EC_BOARD_VENDOR=novacustom EC_BOARD_MODEL=ns5x_tgl ./build.sh

    The resulting image will be placed in: novacustom_ns5x_tgl_ec.rom.

    EC_BOARD_VENDOR=novacustom EC_BOARD_MODEL=nv4x_tgl ./build.sh

    The resulting image will be placed in: novacustom_nv4x_tgl_ec.rom.

Build Dasharo BIOS firmware

  1. Clone the Dasharo coreboot repository:

    cd ..
git clone https://github.com/Dasharo/coreboot.git

  2. Navigate to the source code directory and checkout to the desired revision:

    cd coreboot

    Replace X.Y.Z with a valid version

    git checkout novacustom_v540tu_vX.Y.Z

    git checkout novacustom_v560tu_vX.Y.Z

    git checkout novacustom_ns5x_adl_vX.Y.Z

    git checkout novacustom_nv4x_adl_vX.Y.Z

    git checkout novacustom_ns5x_tgl_vX.Y.Z

    git checkout novacustom_nv4x_tgl_vX.Y.Z

  3. Copy the previously built EC firmware to the coreboot folder:

    cp ../ec/novacustom_v540tu_ec.rom ec.rom

    cp ../ec/novacustom_v560tu_ec.rom ec.rom

    cp ../ec/novacustom_ns5x_adl_ec.rom ec.rom

    cp ../ec/novacustom_nv4x_adl_ec.rom ec.rom

    cp ../ec/novacustom_ns5x_tgl_ec.rom ec.rom

    cp ../ec/novacustom_nv4x_tgl_ec.rom ec.rom

  4. Checkout submodules:

    git submodule update --init --recursive --checkout

  5. Start docker container:

    docker run --rm -it -u $UID \
   -v $PWD:/home/coreboot/coreboot \
   -w /home/coreboot/coreboot \
   coreboot/coreboot-sdk:2023-11-24_2731fa619b /bin/bash
    • If the build commands ahead fail, try using an older container 
      docker run --rm -it -u $UID \
    -v $PWD:/home/coreboot/coreboot \
    -w /home/coreboot/coreboot \
    coreboot/coreboot-sdk:2021-09-23_b0d87f753c /bin/bash

  6. Inside of the container, configure the build process:

    make distclean && cp configs/config.novacustom_v540tu .config

    make distclean && cp configs/config.novacustom_v560tu .config

    make distclean && cp configs/config.novacustom_ns5x_adl .config

    make distclean && cp configs/config.novacustom_nv4x_adl .config

    make distclean && cp configs/config.novacustom_ns5x_tgl .config

    make distclean && cp configs/config.novacustom_nv4x_tgl .config

  7. Start the build process:

    make olddefconfig && make

This will produce a Dasharo binary placed in build/coreboot.rom.

The binary will not contain a boot splash logo. Refer to logo customization for including one.

Build Instructions

  1. Clone the Dasharo coreboot repository:

    git clone https://github.com/Dasharo/coreboot.git
cd coreboot

  2. Checkout to a specific version (optional):

    git checkout novacustom_nuc_box_v0.9.0

  3. Checkout submodules:

    git submodule update --init --checkout

  4. Build the firmware:

    ./build.sh nuc_box

The resulting coreboot image will be: novacustom_nuc_box_v0.9.0.rom

Intro

This section presents the crucial steps required to build the Dasharo Heads firmware. For more information, you may also refer to the official Heads building documentation.

Requirements

This guide was verified on Ubuntu 22.04. In practice, any Linux distribution with Docker support should be enough to complete it.

Make sure that you have following packages installed:

Building

  1. Clone and navigate to the Dasharo Heads repository:

    git clone https://github.com/Dasharo/heads.git
cd heads

  2. Checkout to the desired revision:

    git checkout novacustom_v54x_mtl_v0.9.0

    git checkout novacustom_v56x_mtl_v0.9.0

    git checkout novacustom_nv4x_adl_v0.9.2

  3. Start the build inside the docker container:

    Why not just run ./docker_repro.sh?

    docker_repro.sh mounts the repository at its actual host path inside the container (e.g. /home/user/heads). The build system records that path as the cross-compiler's installation prefix, so two builds from different checkout locations produce different binaries. The official Dasharo releases are always built with the repository mounted at /home/coreboot/coreboot, which is what the commands below replicate.

    This may be addressed in later releases, but to be safe and match the released binary hash, always use the explicit mount below instead of docker_repro.sh.

    The correct docker image version for each release is recorded in .circleci/config.yml. The commands below read it automatically, so they stay correct across releases without any manual edits.

    DOCKER_IMAGE=$(grep -oP '^\s*-?\s*image:\s*\K(tlaurion/heads-dev-env:[^\s]+)' \
    .circleci/config.yml | head -n 1)
docker run --rm -it \
    -v "$(pwd)":/home/coreboot/coreboot \
    -w /home/coreboot/coreboot \
    "${DOCKER_IMAGE}" \
    -- make BOARD=novacustom-v540tu

    This will produce a Dasharo binary placed in build/x86/novacustom-v540tu/dasharo-novacustom-v540tu-*.rom.

    DOCKER_IMAGE=$(grep -oP '^\s*-?\s*image:\s*\K(tlaurion/heads-dev-env:[^\s]+)' \
    .circleci/config.yml | head -n 1)
docker run --rm -it \
    -v "$(pwd)":/home/coreboot/coreboot \
    -w /home/coreboot/coreboot \
    "${DOCKER_IMAGE}" \
    -- make BOARD=novacustom-v560tu

    This will produce a Dasharo binary placed in build/x86/novacustom-v560tu/dasharo-novacustom-v560tu-*.rom.

    DOCKER_IMAGE=$(grep -oP '^\s*-?\s*image:\s*\K(tlaurion/heads-dev-env:[^\s]+)' \
    .circleci/config.yml | head -n 1)
docker run --rm -it \
    -v "$(pwd)":/home/coreboot/coreboot \
    -w /home/coreboot/coreboot \
    "${DOCKER_IMAGE}" \
    -- make BOARD=novacustom-nv4x_adl

    This will produce a Dasharo binary placed in build/x86/novacustom-nv4x_adl/dasharo-novacustom-nv4x_adl-novacustom_nv4x_adl_v0.9.2.rom.

Install Dasharo firmware

The Dasharo firmware can be flashed in following ways, depending on your situation: