Linux

Re: Mini-9 Bios update for Ubuntu?

ratman99uk — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 20:20:00 GMT

Hi All

I got my Mini 9 to upgrade to From A0 to A04 (A05 Would not work). To do this mephord you will need a USB floppy drive & disk and access to a Windows pc (sorry)

I take no responsibility for any loss of data or damage to your computer resulting from you following these inscructions or any part of the post.

On the Windows PC I downloaded "Driver Free Disk For BIOS Flashing" from http://www.bootdisk.com/ (at time of writing the 1st mirror was dead but the second was ok) Running this exe creates a windows boot disk that only uses 112kb which gives you enough room for the bios update.

I then download the DOS version of the A04 bios (A05 Would not work see bottom of post). Click on the A05 Dos version and click "Other Versions" on the right hand side. Once downloaded, unzip the bios and paste it into the floppy disk and boot on the mini 9 using the usb floppy drive (you may need to check boot order in bios)

Once you have the CLI enter "910A04.BAT" without the speechmarks followed by the enter key to start the update. While loading it beeped for each %, which was quite scary :) sounds like the battery low beep. Once its loaded it does everything its self, when it finsihed flashing (took around 1 / 2 min) the matchine rebooted by its self. The bios settings were all reset so any settings you made before the update will need to be re-entered.

I tried using the same mephord first with the A05 update but it said that the hardware wasnt the correct one ????

Ratman99UK

Re: Mini-9 Bios update for Ubuntu?

David Prentice — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:12:22 GMT

There is a DOS installer for the A05 bios, and there was one for the A04 bios. Creating a freedos bootable stick from ubuntu is simple. Yes, a linux shell script to install the bios upgrade directly would be sweet, but at least there is a workable option.

Re: Mini-9 Bios update for Ubuntu?

Jorenko — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:29:16 GMT

Furthermore, the official dell service manual for the mini 9 indicates that there is an ubuntu bios upgrade available, but as far as I can tell there is not. See the relevant manual page here: http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins910/en/sm/bios.htm#wp1110066

Re: Mini-9 Bios update for Ubuntu?

cmspider — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 01:40:56 GMT

Hooray! There's now a dos version of A04 posted on the support downloads page.

Thanks!

Re: Mini-9 Bios update for Ubuntu?

cmspider — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:25:14 GMT

Well, the bios that shipped in my mini-9 doesn't have F-11 and F-12, which after A02 are now Fn-X and Fn-Z.

I'd love to get rid of the beeping when the battery is starting to run low. I don't know if that's been fixed in A04 or not.

One of the improvements listed on the A04 download page is:

> 7.Battery performance improvement.

which sounds useful.

And according to a post here:

http://mydellmini.com/forum/bios-upgrade-utility-split-from-bios-upgrade-failure-topic--t1063s10.html

There is a linux specific fix in A02

> 1.Support Brightness OSD control under Linux

Re: Mini-9 Bios update for Ubuntu?

DELL-Jesse L — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 16:43:21 GMT

cbspider,

Thank you for using the Dell Community Forum.

There are no Bios updates for Ubuntu. There are no need for any at this time. This is messaging from the Engineers at Dell. What are you trying to fix with a bios update?

Re: Mini-9 Bios update for Ubuntu?

David Prentice — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 10:57:07 GMT

Come on Dell! Whats the holdup? Whats the deal with bios updates that are PROMISED as Windows/DOS but are in actuality Windows-only? I'd love to see you support the Mini with an Ubuntu/Linux compatable bios utility, but I would be perfectly satisfied with a bios upgrade that works AS ADVERTISED and will flash from DOS.

Re: Mini-9 Bios update for Ubuntu?

cmspider — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:00:52 GMT

Now A04 is out, and is still a windows-only executable, despite the instructions that say it will run under dos...

Re: Mini-9 Bios update for Ubuntu?

cmspider — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 06:12:49 GMT

This is disappointing - A03 is out, and is still a windows-only executable...

Re: Mini-9 Bios update for Ubuntu?

hackel — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 03:27:21 GMT

Can the bios.rom file in the exe file be installed with the standard dellBiosUpdate program as described here?

It's really ridiculous that Dell has not come up with Linux solutions for updating thie BIOS when they ship the product with Ubuntu. Why don't they include all of their standard Linux tools like they have for their other systems?

Re: Mini-9 Bios update for Ubuntu?

buzzware — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 00:39:38 GMT

The method pgoodall referenced worked well for me. You're simply using the dos flash utility from the earlier BIOS code with the new ROM file from the current BIOS code. I was more comfortable with this than other methods.

The biggest trick is making a bootable USB drive if you don't have any computers with floppy drives, but there is plenty of info around the net to help with that.

Re: Mini-9 Bios update for Ubuntu?

pgoodall — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 20:54:02 GMT

I ended up finding this on the Ubuntu forums:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?s=7f14a3b383c3514f991f089e5b4bd105&p=6215802&postcount=6

As with the solution you posted, it was not for the faint of heart. Btw, the instructions don't mention it, but to extract the files from the A02 windows executable you can use wine and get the files from ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/temp/WINPHLASH/

Re: Mini-9 Bios update for Ubuntu?

cmspider — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:25:12 GMT

It turns out that that is a windows only executable. I did manage to upgrade to A02 using a dos-bootable USB flash drive, but its not trivial. There is a post here on how to do it (I didn't try following those instructions so can't vouch for them).

http://www.mydellmini.com/forum/bios-upgrade-fails-p7011.html#p7011

I wouldn't try it unless you are confident you know what you're doing.

Re: Mini-9 Bios update for Ubuntu?

pgoodall — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 14:59:10 GMT

Hi,

So I managed to create a DOS boot disk, downloaded the BIOS update (that says it works in either Windows or DOS) and when I run the executable it says, "This program cannot be run in DOS mode." I'm a bit stuck. Any answers?

Re: Mini-9 Bios update for Ubuntu?

cmspider — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 20:50:46 GMT

Jesse,

I just came across another issue that may well be bios related. Running powertop on my mini 9 shows that the CPU spends 30-40% of the time running, even when totally idle. There is lots of discussion on launchpad about various bios acpi and apic issues that might be responsible for this.

One of the most relevant seems to be:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/177895

But this looks like it might be a huge battery life issue (like we might get lots more life if it can be fixed. The suggestion in that thread to disable all but the first CPU (the atom hyperthreads - so it looks like two cpus) on my system allows it to spend 95% time in C3, rather than 50-60% when both 'cpus' are enabled.