How to use firmware-tools on Dell Inspiron 531S

[Michael E Brown]

On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 02:39:27PM -0600, R. Steven Rainwater wrote:
> On Fri, 2008-02-22 at 12:21 -0800, Chris Evans wrote:
> >On Fri, 2008-02-22 at 13:28 -0600, R. Steven Rainwater wrote:
> > > I've got a Dell Inspiron 531S desktop box running Redhat Fedora 8.
> > > 
> > >  yum install $(bootstrap_firmware)
> > > 
> > > I'm assuming $(bootstrap_firmware) is supposed to be some sort of
> > > variable...
> >
> > bootstrap_firmware is a command that lists the devices on your system
> > $(command) is similar to `command` so it gets replaced with the
> > devices needed
> > so the way to get it up is
> > yum install $(bootstrap_firmware) # installs the firmware that is  
> > packaged for your system.
> > update_firmware # updates the firmware.
> 
> So, if I'm understanding you, I should literally type "yum install
> $(bootstrap_firmware)" at the command prompt; dollar sign, parenthesis
> and all. Might be good to update the wiki with something to that effect.
> Since that's different than the way people normally use yum. Others may
> expect the $ to indicate a variable or something they're supposed to
> replace. At least if they're as dumb as me. :)
> 
> Okay, so here's what happens on my box. It looks like something has gone
> terribly wrong from the look of it but it's not clear what. Normal usage
> of Yum doesn't dump out 20 lines of hex-coded error messages so I'm not
> sure what to make of this. Any ideas?

This is normal, expected output. The bootstrap_firmare command produces
a list of things that are on your box that *might* have packages to
update. It is then up to yum to look through its list to see if they
exist (and it is telling you they dont.)

I believe that the 531 is one of our AMD boxes, and thus far, we have no
support to flash the AMD boxes at all under linux.
--
Michael