Updating BIOS via Linux ?
How to update BIOS on a system that only use Linux as OS.
Asking this because some clowns at Acer decided that they will only provide BIOS updates through Windows Update.
Edit: I'm not talking about installing the BIOS file. They don't even provide BIOS file in the first place.
66 replies
There is no universal solution to this. Some vendors support fwupd (LVFS) on some hardware (Dell, Lenovo), some allow to update via a file on a USB stick (Asus).
Unless it is a system from Linux first company (Tuxedo, StarLabs, System76, Slimbook) expect to manually check what the specific model you are looking at supports.
I'm not talking about installing the BIOS file. They don't even provide BIOS file in the first place.
Also, I don't think fwupd has firmware for this particular laptop. ( Acer One 14 Z2-493 )
That's the thing - there is no option to update BIOS on Linux then.
You must install Windows or maybe use one of those unofficial Windows Live USB images.
I just came to know about this
Indeed that's IMHO the solution, namely prioritizing ecosystem that genuinely see Linux as something valuable, with an addressable market, rather than a cost linked to annoying users.
it's just sad that they are not selling on my country
you can always just put coreboot on a old thinkpad
I had an Acer laptop once. I had Ubuntu on it. I had problems with random crashing after a few minutes, I ran memtest, it took a few hours for a full test and came back with a whole slew of faults. I sent it to Acer under warranty and they told me that Linux was the problem and I should leave windows on it.
I called the "technical" support regarding this issue. And they said they'll only support Windows.
Making your entire hardware reliant on particular proprietary software like Windows is just stupid.
Never buying Acer again.
At this point, I don't even know which vendor to buy, when everybody is shit.
Tuxedo, Framework, Slimbook, System76, Starlabs are Linux-first vendors with an excellent track record.
3mdeb, Novacustom, Pine64
Minisforum is also said to work well.
I know and Framework is just mouth watering. And Chad76 created their own distro and DE.
it's just sad that they are not selling on my country.
Framework uses proprietary BIOS. They ditched coreboot, which is pretty bad.
Afaik they were also a lot behind on updates.
Any of these European or (even better) UK based..?
Yes. Tuxedo is German, Slimbook Spanish, Starlabs British, NovaCustom Dutch.... Framework is US/Taiwanese but sells within select EU countries and the UK. AFAIK S76 is US/Canada only.
Edit: most of these actually ship worldwide but won't collect VAT and probably won't honor warranty claims outside their territory.
Thank you!
Have a look at Starlabs. You can choose coreboot
A 128 or 256 GB SSD or NVME drive costs £10 to £15 on eBay used. I would buy one and put Windows on it when sending back for warranty repair. OP should actually just do this for the BIOS update and then swap out the SSD back to the Linux one after.
Had something similar with ASUS…never again
Install windows on a second/spare drive. Boot PC from this and run their tool.
I know you're trying to find a way around not using windows, but if the vendors only solution involves it, I wouldn't trust any hacky workarounds when it comes to bios updates.
Thank you. Makes sense.
Is there an option to save the new bios update file to a USB stick, then enter bios and trigger an update manually that fetches the file from said USB stick?
I've done it this way with an Asrock motherboard for desktop running Bazzite.
They don't even provide BIOS file in the first place.
All the security updates are in the microcode loaded by the bootloader even before the kernel is loaded, so unless there's some new feature, bugfix, or hardware support you specifically know you need it's not important to update your BIOS anyway. Which is good, because as far as I can tell you're just screwed by a bad hardware vendor.
Not actually gonna update BIOS. but just curious.
Which accurately translates to Acer.
Depends on the exact model. The usual way on Linux is via
fwupdmgr.I'm not talking about installing the BIOS file. They don't even provide BIOS file in the first place.
Also, I don't think fwupd has firmware for this particular laptop. ( Acer One 14 Z2-493 )
Try it out. I was often pleasantly surprised by the things provided by fwupd.
Frankly in my opinion, bios should only be updatable from the bios itself. No matter which os we talk about, it can always get in the way.
Thank you sane person.
if the provide and exe, You can always create a bootable usb stick of freedos or another dos tool. Copy the file onto the stick. boot to it and cd to where the file is and issue filename.exe
Classic corporate tech forum behaviour.
How?
Which is very dumb.
What .exe are talking about exactly? Is there some exe inside windows iso?
And idk what clevo is. Maybe a mass manufacturer of low quality computers (from my low effort search)
Sadly in my case, iy doesn't.
Sorry, I wrongly remembered. It's my other laptop which has a new bios update.
I think they're saying the Windows update file will contain the firmware binary.
You can find Windows update files here: https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=Acer
But you'll probably have to check each update and see if the "Supported Hardware IDs" match some sort of UUID in
dmidecode. I'm not sure if those are supposed to match though.Then there are some generic firmware update tools for Linux that might work, or might brick your laptop.
Thank you.
Acer has had this policy for over 20 years. I bought a laptop long ago from a vendor that I had issues with and they refused to give me support because I was running Linux at the time. (I forget what distro. Probably either Mandrake or early Ubuntu.) That laptop went right back to the vendor.
Never bought anything from them since.
What a joke they are.
I feel your pain. I've searched a bit online and found several different methods (not for Acer though) that all go way over my head. I just leave the BIOS to deprecate on its own by now.
As someone who's built his own PCs for years, I've never really bothered with a BIOS update.
Then again, one of the main reasons to update BIOS is to gain support for new CPUs, but I've been using Intel which switches to a new socket or chipset every other generation anyway. I've almost always had to buy a new motherboard alongside a new CPU.
I don't have reason to update BIOS either. But just in case.
Then why are you making such a huge stink over it?
Just learning bro.
🫂
Sorry, but in your case the only way is to install Windows. Make a dual boot.
Thank you.
I think it's stupid to provide something hardware related like BIOS exclusively through a particular proprietary software like Windows.
I know for HP machines, the bios updater exe can be decompressed and you can just get the bios image and the signature file from that.
Idk what machine you have, but at least for an older aspire laptop my friend has, there is a bios download.
If you follow instructions to make bios recovery media, you can update your bios through that.
Edit: that Acer laptop you have doesn't even show up on Acer's support page. Supposedly it's sold as an Acer aspire a something or other. If you search based on your snid, you should be able to get to a downloads page.
Also clevo seems to make this laptop, according to the Acer India webpage I found for it
This is exactly my problem.
Still nothing.
Thank You.
What's your snid? It might show up as a different model on a different website.
Usually you can extract the windows updater exe and use the bios/bin/upd file via mainboard bios update mechanisms
They don't even provide BIOS file in the first place. So no exe to extract.
Acer supports 2 of their devices on Linux
https://fwupd.org/lvfs/devices/
Thank you. Sadly mine is different.
I know some BIOS update that works with FreeDOS.
Just basically need to flash it into a USB drive and run the BIOS update .exe with it.
There's no exe. They don't even provide BIOS file in the first place.
What do they provide then?
Also, in Linux there's fwupd
Updates via Windows update
Nothing on their download page either?
There is no download page for this particular laptop.🥲
Try to check if it's supported by fwupd then.
Thanks.
take a look at this and this
Thank You.
What Acer board are you trying to update?
My Lenovo laptops running fedora get BIOS updates via dnf
Well, sucks to be me.
@gpstarman I only use Asus and Gigabyte boards, both have the ability to flash the BIOS using the maintenance engine on the board without even having a CPU or memory installed, let alone an OS booted.