Unable to update bios on ubuntu for vostro 1710

[Brett Ussher]

I don't have a Vostros 1710, but I do have biosdisk.  I just used the 
latest .exe file from the Dell website (V1710A12.exe) and used the 
following command:

sudo biosdisk install --name A12 ./Desktop/V1710A12.exe

I was in my home folder in the command prompt and the file was stored on 
my Desktop at the time.  It worked.  I now have a new entry in my grub 
menu for a "V1710A12.img".  I don't dare run it, of course, since I 
don't use that machine, but it would seem to work.

Brett D. Ussher



Matt Domsch wrote:
> On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 11:35:38PM +0100, Benoni Hamilton wrote:
>   
>> So, is there anywhere we can get some sort of compatability list from then?
>>     
>
> We do keep a list of systems we know firmware-tools doesn't work on.
> But by "we", I mean the Linux Engineering team, not everyone at Dell.
> Being a fairly large company with many products, many of which are not
> sold with Linux, we tend to find out about problems only after people
> have bought a system, installed Linux on it, and then find us. :-)
>
> http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Firmware/Systems_Missing_RBU
>
> is the list as I know it right now.  I added the Vostro 1710 based on
> this discussion.
>
> As for the question of using 'biosdisk', I wish that were possible.
> But it appears that the Vostro 1710 BIOS updater expects to be running
> in a Windows environment, and does not work in a DOS environment.
>
>