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Joined on 09/21/2006 Posts: 119
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Firmware Updates LiveCD thanks to Revisor

16 July , 02:15 PM

One of the coolest tools to come out of the Fedora Project is Revisor, which makes it blindingly simple to create your own custom Linux distribution, where you get to choose the packages you wish to include. This week I've been playing with Revisor to generate a Dell Firmware Updates LiveCD. Most of the components necessary for this are already included in Fedora: the firmware-tools framework, firmware-addon-dell Dell-specific flash tools, libsmbios utilities, and the dell_rbu kernel module (in upstream). To these we add the system_bios* and pci_firmware* packages from the Dell firmware repository, that contains the actual BIOS and firmware images in convenient RPMs. The result is a bootable LiveCD that lets you log in and run 'update_firmware' to flash your system to the latest BIOS on 282 Dell system types.

Instructions for building your own firmware LiveCD are posted at http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Tech/libsmbios_livecd.

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Todd Lyons
03 Aug 2007 07:43 AM

What a great idea!  I bought my first Dell last spring (a B130 laptop) and have been running a Kubuntu dual boot with Windows, just so I could apply firmware updates.  A tool like this would be invaluable to those of us who'd like to be able to be completely Windows free.

Now if Dell could just release some drivers for the ubiquitous Broadcom wireless cards, I'd be a completely contented camper.
 
Les
20 Jul 2007 05:27 PM

OK, makes more sense to me now.  If the bios update is easy for a new Linux user to use it would be great, but having them try and rebuild the live CD may be a little intimidating.

For the bios updates, any type of binary installer would be great.  I use PCLinuxOS 2007 on the n series, so any binary installer would cover any distro that is installed. Something like the flash installer that is on their website for Linux. 

BTW, I love the E1505n with ubuntu preinstalled, even if I'm not running ubuntu on it!
 
Fco Javier Portillo
18 Jul 2007 08:21 AM

Could we update Service tags using this LiveCD?

Thnaks
 
Matt_Domsch_blog
18 Jul 2007 08:21 AM
yes, the serviceTag program which can change that is included in the libsmbios-bin RPM, which is installed in my package set.
 
Harald Jensås, Dell Enterprise Deployment.
17 Jul 2007 05:24 AM

Well, you beat me to it this time Matt! :)

I have been thinking about creating a new LiveCD with, OMSA, PE-Diags and the tools to update firmwares and BIOSes as well. What has been holding me back is that not all PERC and BMC are yet supported?

My idea is also to create a VM with a combined PXE server to boot the linux environment from and a mirror of repository. It would be useful in my job to update servers in a fast an automated way.
 
Les
16 Jul 2007 08:12 PM
What would be great is if another option could be added to the live CD for a  binary installer for those of us who have bought the Linux hardware but are using different distros!
 
Matt_Domsch_blog
16 Jul 2007 08:12 PM
Les, can you elaborate on your comment?  I don't quite understand.  One of the reasons for doing a LiveCD as opposed to simply installing the firmware while running one of the  distros for which packages already exist (Fedora, RHEL, SLES) is so you can boot the LiveCD and do your updates, regardless of what OS you are running on the system.  It's just as useful to people who run *BSD as to those who run Fedora; in fact, more so exactly because firmware-tools hasn't been ported to run on *BSD to my knowledge.
 
tactus
16 Jul 2007 05:21 PM

Now try *that* with proprietary software. ;D

Would be nice if this takes off. Sure is innovative usage of the Fedora distro.
 
Jeff Ollie
16 Jul 2007 03:25 PM
This kind of stuff is way cool! Unfortunately the next laptop I buy out of personal funds will be running Windows (my wife is not yet a Linux convert) but it'll be nice to know that tools like this will be available when I need to do maintenance.  When the time comes I'll be sure to direct her to Dell!
 
Jeremy Katz
16 Jul 2007 03:17 PM

Given the amount that you're specifying, you could really just add the repo line for the firmware repo and then have people run:

   livecd-creator --config=/path/to/firmwareupdater-ks.cfg fwupd
 

A little bit less convoluted for the case where you're already providing all the bits people want :-) 
 
Mike McGrath
16 Jul 2007 03:14 PM
What an amazingly useful remix :)
 
Anonymous
16 Jul 2007 02:57 PM
Will you be releasing this LiveCD once you get it fully functional and tested?
 
Matt_Domsch_blog
16 Jul 2007 02:57 PM
Hopefully, yes, I or someone will be able to post this to linux.dell.com in the future.  My proof-of-concept works, but I haven't taken the time to replace the fedora-logos package or determine which SRPMs need to be posted alongside it, both of which are necessary before the LiveCD can be posted.