dell 2850 etch firmware updates

[Matt Domsch]

On Tue, Oct 16, 2007 at 10:43:44AM +0200, L.P.H. van Belle wrote:
> hi, 
>  
> Is it possible to update my firmwares from within debian. 

Yes.  However, it's not as simple as it is with RPM-based
distributions.  I've been hacking on this to make it simpler, but it's
not there yet.

First, install the libsmbios-bin package, which is in sarge at least.

Run getSystemId (as root) to get the System ID.

# getSystemId
Libsmbios:    0.13.6
System ID:    0x01A8
Service Tag:  XXXXXXX
Express Service Code: XXXXXXXXXXXX
Product Name: Precision WorkStation 380
BIOS Version: A07
Vendor:       Dell Inc.
Is Dell:      1

The interesting value here is the System ID.
Now you've got to manually download the right BIOS payload file from
http://linux.dell.com/repo/software/bios-hdrs/
for your system.  In my case that is the bios.hdr file in the
http://linux.dell.com/repo/software/bios-hdrs/system_bios_ven_0x1028_dev_0x01a8_version_a09/
directory.  (See, my system has BIOS A07, but there's A09 available).

Now that it's downloaded, you can:

# modprobe dell_rbu
# dellBiosUpdate -u -f bios.hdr
(read what it says. If no errors, reboot.)

Thanks,
Matt

-- 
Matt Domsch
Linux Technology Strategist, Dell Office of the CTO
linux.dell.com & www.dell.com/linux