Updating the BIOS on Dell systems

BIOS update utilities and files are often provided as Windows executable files. This guide provides information for Dell users to use such files without using Windows or any emulation software.

Checking your current BIOS version

The current BIOS version can be checked by this command from Ubuntu:

sudo dmidecode -s bios-version

The current BIOS release date can be obtained by invoking:

sudo dmidecode -s bios-release-date

Using Dell packages

The firmware-tools and frimware-addon-dell packages are available from the Ubuntu Universe repositories and are required to perform a BIOS upgrade on Dell systems.

The latest system BIOS images for many Dell system types are available in a repository on linux.dell.com. Detailed information is available at the Dell wiki about firmware.

In a nutshell, for Ubuntu systems with Gutsy or later, be sure the Universe section is enabled in /etc/apt/sources.list, then run:

sudo -s
wget -q -O - http://linux.dell.com/repo/firmware/bootstrap.cgi | bash
aptitude install firmware-addon-dell firmware-tools
aptitude install $(bootstrap_firmware -a)
update_firmware

The bootstrap command downloads an OpenPGP key for use in validating the linux.dell.com repository, and sets up the dell-firmware and dell-software sections for use by apt.

If the system does not need to be updated, a message similar to this will be shown:

root@bachue:~# update_firmware

Searching storage directory for available BIOS updates...

Checking System BIOS for Precision WorkStation 360 - a08
        Available: system_bios(ven_0x1028_dev_0x0156) - a08
        Did not find a newer package to install that meets all installation checks.

This system does not appear to have any updates available.
No action necessary.

A reboot is required for the BIOS upgrade to actually happen.

Dell has had this service available for quite a while for several RPM-based distributions. They are now bringing this to the dpkg-based distributions now as well.

Using biosdisk

Note: this section is kept for reference purposes. The preferred method for updating your Dell BIOS should be the on described in the above section.

biosdisk is a utility maintained by John Hull at Dell. There isn't an official Ubuntu package yet but the provided downloadable archive has an installer which can be used to upgrade your BIOS from Ubuntu.

biosdisk simplifies the process of flashing your system BIOS under Linux on Dell desktops and laptops. The purpose of this utility is to create a bootable BIOS flash image using the raw BIOS flash executable images (e.g. WS360A05.exe) available from support.dell.com. An RPM, SRPM, and tarball for this project are available at http://linux.dell.com/biosdisk.

The project consists of a shell script that, when executed, creates a FreeDOS floppy image at a location of your choosing. This project is intended for Dell desktop and laptop customers and not PowerEdge customers, since Linux BIOS flash packages are already available for PowerEdge systems, and raw executable BIOS flash images are not.

To use the biosdisk utility to create a BIOS flash image, first download the latest raw BIOS image for your system from support.dell.com or ftp://ftp.dell.com/bios. You then have one of several options: create a floppy, create a dd floppy image, create a user-installable distribution-specific package (e.g. RPM), or actually install the image for your bootloader.

Installing biosdisk for Ubuntu

1. Download the latest tarball (.tar.gz archive) version of biosdisk from http://linux.dell.com/biosdisk to your home directory. Version 0.65 was released in 2004 and is the latest as of September 2007.

2. Open a terminal window by going to Applications | Accessories | Terminal

3. Extract the archive:  tar -zxvf biosdisk-0.65.tar.gz 

4. Edit the first line of the install.sh script to use bash instead of sh:

 gedit install.sh 

1. The line should look like this once edited:  #!/bin/bash

2. In the same file, comment out the line where templates for rpm systems are copied. The last few lines of the file should then look like this:

    #install -m 644 biosdisk-mkrpm-redhat-template.spec /usr/share/biosdisk
   #install -m 644 biosdisk-mkrpm-generic-template.spec /usr/share/biosdisk
   install -m 644 biosdisk.8.gz /usr/share/man/man8 

3. Two packages are needed for biosdisk to work. They are both part of the main repository. The following command will install them:

 sudo apt-get install tofrodos syslinux 

1. Edit the first line of the biosdisk file to use bash instead of sh:  gedit biosdisk 

2. The line should look like this once edited:  #!/bin/bash

3. Now the install script can be invoked:  sudo ./install.sh 

4. If you don't get any output, the install should have completed succesfully. To verify your installation is complete, invoke biosdisk without any parameters, as root:  sudo biosdisk 

Creating a bootable floppy disk

The mkfloppy action will create the biosdisk image and write it directly to a floppy disk. Usage is the following:  biosdisk mkfloppy [-o option] [-d device] [-k baseimage] /path/to/.exe 

If you are using an external USB floppy drive, make sure you use the -d option to refer to it, for example:

Creating a floppy disk image file

The mkimage action will create a floppy image on the user's hard drive. Usage is the following:  biosdisk mkimage [-o option] [-i destination] [-k baseimage] /path/to/.exe 

Creating a RedHat / Fedora package

The mkpkg action will create the floppy image, and use it to create a user-installable package specific to the distribution (example: RPM). When the package is installed, it will use the distribution's built-in tools to update the system's bootloader so that the user can boot to the image from the hard drive to flash the BIOS, without needing a floppy drive. Currently only Red Hat/Fedora RPM packages are supported. This method will not work in Ubuntu. Usage is as follows:  biosdisk mkpkg [-o option] [--install] [--distro=] [--name=] [--version=] [--release=] /path/to/{.exe | .img} 

Installing an image in the bootloader

The install action will create the biosdisk image, copy the image file to /boot, and then update the bootloader with an entry for the image. Then all the user has to do is boot the system and select the image to flash the BIOS; this will load the biosdisk image directly from the hard drive and flash the BIOS. Usage:  biosdisk install [-o option] [--name=] /path/to/{.exe | .img}