These kind of BIOS modding shenannigans is why I got interesed in Coreboot, so that enhancing a Firmware capabilities becomes possible without touching propietary tools/code.
Other similar mods included adding NVMe Boot capabilities to older Firmwares that didn't supported them so that you could boot from modern NVMe drives if you used some kind of adapter (As none of those Motherboards have M.2 Slots, but you can use them with a PCIe-to-M.2 adapter card). Also adding required stuff to get certain CPUs booting in Motherboard that were never officially supported (Depending on generation, could be as simple as adding new CPU Microcode).
These days you might be able to just point an AI at the original BIOS and tell it what you need done, instead of attempting to install a complete rewrite like Coreboot (which comes with its own limitations, the biggest one being that only a rather small subset of mobos are actually supported.)
Coreboot in desktops is perhaps in the best shape it has been in more than a decade because you have the MSI Z690-A/Z790-P series for LGA 1700 (Which were current gen when released, and still viable if you want Intel with DDR4, albeit the boards aren't available in retail anymore) and the recently released port for the MSI B850-P for AM5 Phoenix. It was a major leap from previously, where it only supported ancient platforms or unobtanium reference boards. I bashed Coreboot a lot for that, but now you actually have usable options. Same with Servers, with the Gigabyte MZ33-AR1 for AMD Turin. When was the last time you saw Coreboot running on current gen boards available in retail, if ever?
The last time I looked at Coreboot it didn't have any configuration UI at all ("you have to set the options and recompile/reflash" was the answer I got), which basically makes it next to useless for a regular PC... and apparently it still doesn't. They've already done the hard work of RE'ing and all the hardware-specific stuff; how hard can it be to at least have a simple setup menu? Hopefully someone vibecodes (vibeports?) one in the next little while.
(Incidentally this is also one of my gripes with the Intel Macs, wanting to put Linux on one but having zero configurability pre-OS is a huge pain. Meanwhile a standard PC BIOS with the equivalent hardware has plenty of options. Maybe I'll get around to (vibe)porting a regular BIOS to mine...)
The menu part is the task of the payload.
If you compile Coreboot with a payload you can get a menu no problem. EDK II, Seabios or grub payloads all support this.
If you want to you may want to point your vibes for vibecoding towards making a libpayload universal menu for Coreboot , that way you at least conform with the architecture.
zir_blazer · · focus · HN ↗
Other similar mods included adding NVMe Boot capabilities to older Firmwares that didn't supported them so that you could boot from modern NVMe drives if you used some kind of adapter (As none of those Motherboards have M.2 Slots, but you can use them with a PCIe-to-M.2 adapter card). Also adding required stuff to get certain CPUs booting in Motherboard that were never officially supported (Depending on generation, could be as simple as adding new CPU Microcode).
userbinator · · focus · HN ↗
zir_blazer · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://www.downtowndougbrown.com/2026/08/fixing-an-emachines-el1200-bios-bug-with-claude/" rel="nofollow">https://www.downtowndougbrown.com/2026/08/fixing-an-emachine...
<a href="https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/modder-uses-claude-ai-to-rewrite-bios-so-they-can-boot-unsupported-12-p-core-bartlett-lake-cpu-in-windows-on-a-z790-motherboard" rel="nofollow">https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/modder-uses-...
Coreboot in desktops is perhaps in the best shape it has been in more than a decade because you have the MSI Z690-A/Z790-P series for LGA 1700 (Which were current gen when released, and still viable if you want Intel with DDR4, albeit the boards aren't available in retail anymore) and the recently released port for the MSI B850-P for AM5 Phoenix. It was a major leap from previously, where it only supported ancient platforms or unobtanium reference boards. I bashed Coreboot a lot for that, but now you actually have usable options. Same with Servers, with the Gigabyte MZ33-AR1 for AMD Turin. When was the last time you saw Coreboot running on current gen boards available in retail, if ever?
userbinator · · focus · HN ↗
(Incidentally this is also one of my gripes with the Intel Macs, wanting to put Linux on one but having zero configurability pre-OS is a huge pain. Meanwhile a standard PC BIOS with the equivalent hardware has plenty of options. Maybe I'll get around to (vibe)porting a regular BIOS to mine...)
trashb · · focus · HN ↗
If you want to you may want to point your vibes for vibecoding towards making a libpayload universal menu for Coreboot , that way you at least conform with the architecture.