Solved How do you upgrade firmware?

[DanielBowman]

On my DELL it updates firmware for BIOS, wifi, NIC, video like very other week via Windows 11.
How would I get the new firmware via FreeBSD?

 

[Phishfry]

Plug your Dell Service Tag Number into Dell Support and download firmware.

I use a DOS bootable USB stick with the firmware extracted onto and run from there.

 

[DanielBowman]

Plug your Dell Service Tag Number into Dell Support and download firmware.

I use a DOS bootable USB stick with the firmware extracted onto and run from there.

DOS, hmmmm. I have installation floppy disks for 6.22 somewhere.
Just kidding, I used to have whole ecosystem of boot disks. Last one had that Vista recovery whatever with Norton Ghost for backups.
Asus can download directly. nvidia I would have to check. network is realtek.
I was worried I would have to install Windows first.
Thanks.

 

[Phishfry]

It really comes down to what the firmware flasher needs. DOS or EFI boot disk. Look at the Linux instructions for guidance.

How to Update Dell BIOS on Ubuntu or Linux | Dell US

 

[Espionage724]

The Skylake Dells I've seen have a boot key option to BIOS Flash, and it can read .exe BIOS files on visible internal disks or USB (I'd dl firmware from Dell support page and put it on FAT32 USB)

 

[Phishfry]

FreeBSD has fwget but its for finding firmware blobs for devices, not firmware for system.

fwget(8) - FreeBSD 15.1-RELEASE and Ports.quarterly Manual Pages

man.freebsd.org

 

[covacat]

if everything works i don't bother. also enough of the firmware is just a blob that sits on the file system it does not flash anything.