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.
this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2024
6 points (75.0% liked)
Linux
47321 readers
682 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
Thank you sane person.
Acer supports 2 of their devices on Linux
Thank you. Sadly mine is different.
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.
unofficial Windows Live USB images.
I just came to know about this
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.
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.
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.
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.
reminder to myself to remove the ssd next time i need warranty repair
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.
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
And this is one more reason I will only buy a laptop from System76, Framework, or Tuxedo to run Linux.
All motherboard manufacturers irrespective of OEM should provider a firmware mode that can be boot to, allowing BIOS upgrades. But since they don’t seem to, especially with laptops, seems best to stick with known vendors whose primary OS they support is Linux.
Good luck, OP. Hope the live Windows USB thing works. Just be careful to not get infected with Recall or any other Microsoft nonsense :)
Razer was the worst. It had to be done thru a ‘legitimate’ copy of the latest full Microsoft Windows (no old Windows, Windows PE, FreeDOS, etc.) & the purpose was to give you a black+green GUI experience. After I emailed them about this several years ago when I had a Razer laptop, they put up a sign on the support page now saying installing Linux voids both you warranty & any support tickets.
Yeah, I’ve also found Razer to be quite bad both in quality of hardware and support.
Only thing I own now that is made by Razer is a mouse.
Funny is that they did a big push for a hot minute to be the next developer-friendly laptop goto as they had a lot of power & æsthetics that were slim & looked alright in an office compared to everything else at the time where gaming laptops needed RGB & a hood scoop while non-gaming laptop suffered massively in performance. I picked one up around that announcement, but a few years & they completetly doubled back.
Thank You.
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
doesn't even show up on Acer's support page.
This is exactly my problem.
If you search based on your snid, you should be able to get to a downloads page.
Still nothing.
Thank You.
What's your snid? It might show up as a different model on a different website.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sorry, but in your case the only way is to install Windows. Make a dual boot.