Topic 1 headline:
flashrom: Run your BIOS/EFI/firmware updates under any free OS

Topic 1 abstract:
This talk is a short introduction to flashrom. You will learn about flashrom's features, the reliability promise, how to run a standard BIOS update and how to perform advanced recovery tricks and firmware dumping. Common pitfalls and future directions will be revealed, and you get to watch a live demonstration of a BIOS update without
rebooting.
flashrom is the open source utility of choice to identify, read, write, verify and erase flash chips. flashrom is commonly used to flash BIOS/EFI/firmware from a running Linux, *BSD, OpenSolaris and Mac OS X, but it also has the ability to reflash graphics cards, SATA controllers, network cards and one game console. A wide variety of external programmers is supported as well, from ultra-cheap homemade setups to high end commercial machines. Hotflashing and crossflashing complete the feature set.

Topic 2 headline:
coreboot: Bringing free firmware to a computer near you

Topic 2 abstract:
coreboot is a free firmware for x86 computers. It is designed as an extremely fast and lightweight alternative to BIOS and EFI (poweron to OS in <500 ms) while retaining the flexibility to boot any operating system. A few hundred desktop/server/embedded mainboards are supported, and a few select laptops are supported as well.
This talk will briefly introduce coreboot goals and current project status, and then jump right into a rollercoaster ride through laptop architecture (main processor and embedded controllers), x86 early initialization, coreboot architecture, reverse engineering, hardware debugging, and how to write coreboot support for your own hardware.
You'll get to know the various technical (no debug hardware available, ...) and non-technical (no datasheets, ...) roadblocks and how to overcome them. Whether you just want to understand how coreboot works and buy supported hardware or you want to port and install coreboot to your own hardware, this talk will give you all the info to get started.

coreboot and flashrom have the same roots (flashrom is a spinoff of coreboot) and we usually try to present both projects together because flashrom is needed to install coreboot on a mainboard and quite a few people have told us that a combined presentation is very appreciated.