Upgrade BIOS ?

[Gilles Gravier]

Hi!

On 25/08/2020 12:58, Liam Proven wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Aug 2020 at 16:41, Bill <bstanle at wowway.com> wrote:
>> Are there any side effects of upgrading the BIOS on my computer? The
>> computer is quite old but it is arguably still a good machine (i7 with
>> 12 GB ram but it still has the original BIOS - circa 2010).  Is Linux
>> affected in any way (both positive or negative)?
> Generally a good idea, and at risk of disagreeing with other
> commenters, should be regarded as part of routine maintenance of a
> machine.
>
> I don't think I've ever seen any _negative_ results from it, except
> once in some 25 years or so when Windows failed activation half way
> through the reflash and it bricked the machine. Fortunately a
> colleague managed to get the vendor firmware reset CD to work and
> recovered the machine, and I used it for many more years.

Fully agreed. BIOS is a key component of your system. If there is an
updated version, it's not to add bells and whistles, it's to fix things,
or to add a needed feature. So definitely a good idea to update the BIOS
if there is a new version available.

The sad part is that not all vendors make that easy for Linux only machines.

I have an HP EliteBook which does things marvelously well. When on an
ethernet network (unfortunately not supported on WiFi, but that would
require an additional bunch of code in the firmware - the modern name
for UEFI's equivalent of a BIOS) then it gets a DHCP address and can go
fetch firmware upgrades online. It can even downgrade the current
firmware if you found an issue.

Some vendors let you create a DOS bootable media with the firmware/BIOS
upgrade application running in it. That also works reasonably well for
us Linux users. It gets messy when firmware upgrade can only be done
from a Windows app. Don't try this inside WINE or inside VirtualBox,
it's a recipe for disaster...

Does anybody know if some vendors support firmware/BIOS upgrades from a
Linux app (GUI or command line)?

Gilles



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