Trouble building coreboot early stages

[Gabriel Malaspina]

Hello,

I'd like to build coreboot for HP Elitebook 8570w but I keep running 
into trouble.

I'm trying to build /coreinfo/, following the 1st part of the tutorial 
https://doc.coreboot.org/tutorial/part1.html to the letter, but it 
simply doesn't work.

Initially I'd get an error involving /libpayload/; I got it compiled and 
installed following instructions in /README/ and now I'm getting the 
following:

...               ...
AR         /home/gabriel/coreboot/payloads/coreinfo/libpayload/libpayload.a
    CC         arch/x86/head.head.o.o
    CP         /home/gabriel/coreboot/payloads/coreinfo/libpayload/head.o
    LPGCC      coreinfo.bin
/home/gabriel/coreboot/util/crossgcc/xgcc/i386-elf/bin/ld.bfd: cannot 
find -lpayload
/home/gabriel/coreboot/util/crossgcc/xgcc/i386-elf/bin/ld.bfd: cannot 
find libgcc.a: No such file or directory
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [../libpayload/Makefile.payload:93: build/coreinfo.bin] Error 1
make: Leaving directory '/home/gabriel/coreboot/payloads/coreinfo

I'd guess it's a matter of unsatisfied dependencies but  I don't 
understand /make/ files, as of yet at least.

Anyone that could point me in any direction?

Thanks,

Gabriel.

[Martin Roth]

Hi Gabriel,

Welcome to coreboot!

What distro are you using? I just tested the instructions using debian and had no issues.

The tutorial originally had stated a distribution, and was written specifically for that linux distro, but in an attempt to be more supportive of a wider community, it's been expanded with instructions on how to run it under more distributions.  This is great but as a consequence, it's difficult to debug issues like this without knowing what distro you're using, even if you have exactly followed the instructions.

You don't generally need coreinfo as a payload - it's just a simple payload that comes with the coreboot project, so is easy to use for the tutorial.  To boot your machine, you'd want something like seabios, grub2, tianocore, or something else that will load the OS from some sort of boot media for you.

As far as teaching you makefiles, that's a little beyond the scope of the initial tutorial here.  In fact, the coreboot makefiles are about as complex set of makefile as you'll ever see without someone trying (HARD) to make something more convoluted.  I'd probably recommend against looking at the coreboot makefiles as the first attempt to learn make unless you like to learn to swim by diving into the deep end.

If you haven't already done so, you can generally get quicker responses from people on the #coreboot channel on libera-chat:  https://web.libera.chat/#coreboot

Take care, and again, welcome to coreboot
Martin

Dec 26, 2022, 14:22 by [e-mail]:
> Hello,
>
> I'd like to build coreboot for HP Elitebook 8570w but I keep      running into trouble.
>
> I'm trying to build > coreinfo> , following the 1st part of      the > tutorial https://doc.coreboot.org/tutorial/part1.html>  to the letter, but it simply doesn't work.
>
> Initially I'd get an error involving > libpayload> ; I got it      compiled and installed following instructions in > README>        and now I'm getting the following:
>
> ...               ...
> > AR                    /home/gabriel/coreboot/payloads/coreinfo/libpayload/libpayload.a
>
> CC         arch/x86/head.head.o.o 
>     CP                    /home/gabriel/coreboot/payloads/coreinfo/libpayload/head.o 
>     LPGCC      coreinfo.bin
> > /home/gabriel/coreboot/util/crossgcc/xgcc/i386-elf/bin/ld.bfd:          cannot find -lpayload
> > /home/gabriel/coreboot/util/crossgcc/xgcc/i386-elf/bin/ld.bfd:        cannot find libgcc.a: No such file or directory
>
> collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status 
>  make: *** [../libpayload/Makefile.payload:93:        build/coreinfo.bin] Error 1 
>  make: Leaving directory        '/home/gabriel/coreboot/payloads/coreinfo
>
> I'd guess it's a matter of unsatisfied dependencies but  I don't      understand > make>  files, as of yet at least.
>
> Anyone that could point me in any direction?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Gabriel.

[Gabriel Malaspina]

Hi Martin,

Thanks for your email !

I'm using openSuSE 15.4. I didn't think there'd be a problem with this 
particular distro, but I installed Ubuntu on a VM nevertheless. 
Instructions from the tutorial worked *without a single problem*.

Unless advised otherwise I'll carry on using Ubuntu to compile coreboot, 
but if anybody here comes up with an attempt to make it work on 
openSuSE, please fell free to contact me and I'll give it a try.

coreinfo: I know I don't particularly need it, but I figured I'd give it 
a try before trying with a more /useful/ payload.

make files: I started with docs from GCC but I just couldn't keep it up. 
Cryptic to say the least. lol

libera-chat: excellent ! I'll try it

Since I managed to read the flash chip externally and put my laptop 
together again -I'm right now on it-, I'll probably start other threads 
with other questions.

Thanks again for your response,

Gabriel.

On 28/12/2022 04:36, Martin Roth wrote:
> Hi Gabriel,
>
> Welcome to coreboot!
>
> What distro are you using? I just tested the instructions using debian and had no issues.
>
> The tutorial originally had stated a distribution, and was written specifically for that linux distro, but in an attempt to be more supportive of a wider community, it's been expanded with instructions on how to run it under more distributions.  This is great but as a consequence, it's difficult to debug issues like this without knowing what distro you're using, even if you have exactly followed the instructions.
>
> You don't generally need coreinfo as a payload - it's just a simple payload that comes with the coreboot project, so is easy to use for the tutorial.  To boot your machine, you'd want something like seabios, grub2, tianocore, or something else that will load the OS from some sort of boot media for you.
>
> As far as teaching you makefiles, that's a little beyond the scope of the initial tutorial here.  In fact, the coreboot makefiles are about as complex set of makefile as you'll ever see without someone trying (HARD) to make something more convoluted.  I'd probably recommend against looking at the coreboot makefiles as the first attempt to learn make unless you like to learn to swim by diving into the deep end.
>
> If you haven't already done so, you can generally get quicker responses from people on the #coreboot channel on libera-chat:https://web.libera.chat/#coreboot
>
> Take care, and again, welcome to coreboot
> Martin
>
> Dec 26, 2022, 14:22 [e-mail]:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I'd like to build coreboot for HP Elitebook 8570w but I keep      running into trouble.
> >
> > I'm trying to build > coreinfo> , following the 1st part of      the > tutorialhttps://doc.coreboot.org/tutorial/part1.html>  to the letter, but it simply doesn't work.
> >
> > Initially I'd get an error involving > libpayload> ; I got it      compiled and installed following instructions in > README>        and now I'm getting the following:
> >
> > ...               ...
> > > AR                    /home/gabriel/coreboot/payloads/coreinfo/libpayload/libpayload.a
> >
> > CC         arch/x86/head.head.o.o
> >      CP                    /home/gabriel/coreboot/payloads/coreinfo/libpayload/head.o
> >      LPGCC      coreinfo.bin
> > > /home/gabriel/coreboot/util/crossgcc/xgcc/i386-elf/bin/ld.bfd:          cannot find -lpayload
> > > /home/gabriel/coreboot/util/crossgcc/xgcc/i386-elf/bin/ld.bfd:        cannot find libgcc.a: No such file or directory
> >
> > collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
> >   make: *** [../libpayload/Makefile.payload:93:        build/coreinfo.bin] Error 1
> >   make: Leaving directory        '/home/gabriel/coreboot/payloads/coreinfo
> >
> > I'd guess it's a matter of unsatisfied dependencies but  I don't      understand > make>  files, as of yet at least.
> >
> > Anyone that could point me in any direction?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Gabriel.

[Peter Stuge]

Hi Gabriel,

Gabriel Malaspina wrote:
> I'm using openSuSE 15.4. I didn't think there'd be a problem with this 
> particular distro, but I installed Ubuntu on a VM nevertheless. 
> Instructions from the tutorial worked *without a single problem*.
>
> Unless advised otherwise I'll carry on using Ubuntu to compile coreboot, 
> but if anybody here comes up with an attempt to make it work on 
> openSuSE, please fell free to contact me and I'll give it a try.

There is significant value in the knowledge needed to build across
different distributions so hopefully that can be gathered by some
further testing.

The good news is that your build seems to be almost at the end; it
looked like libpayload couldn't be found by the coreboot toolchain
in the (late) linking step. It would be interesting to know how you
installed libpayload on OpenSuSE, especially anything you did
different on Ubuntu.

Thanks

//Peter