HP distributes linux-based firmware updates, but only for add-in devices
(scsi controllers, BMC, etc), not the bios itself...
Erm, I just (as in, this week) upgraded the BIOS of a batch of DL160 G5s from
within Linux.
nice. for a lot of models, they make available a dos/win exe
that produces a bootable floppy image. kind of a pain.
I wonder whether there are any legal or technical reasons to
prevent something like this:
- simple drivers for windows and linux that let you
write the bios code as well as access settings.
- bios update containing a binary blob of code,
with appropriate checksums, etc.
- xml-ish description of the bios settings, something
like
<setting name="scrub rate">
<description>rate at which a single cacheline of memory
will be verified and written back </description>
<options default="10ms">
<opt val=1> 1ms </opt>
<opt val=2> 10ms </opt>
<opt val=3> 100ms </opt>
<opt val=4> 1000ms </opt>
</options>
<location type="byte"> 0x43 </location>
</setting>
being able to check and interpret bios settings (from the normal OS)
would be a major advantage. being able to set them would be very nice
as well, even if the change didn't take effect until the bios ran again
(next boot).
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