[ale] A reason NOT to remove Windows from a laptop

[Ron Frazier]

Michael,

Wow.  Those are cool links.  Thanks for passing that along.  I never
would have found those on my own, and Dell certainly didn't say anything
about it.

Sincerely,

Ron

On Fri, 2011-01-07 at 15:31 -0500, Michael H. Warfield wrote:
> On Fri, 2011-01-07 at 14:12 -0500, Ron Frazier wrote: 
> > Hi all.  I have a Dell laptop which I dual boot between Windows and
> > Ubuntu.  I do about 95% of my activities in Ubuntu, but have a few that
> > require Windows.  I also support some family and friends which use
> > Windows.
> 
> > FYI, I just discovered another reason to leave Windows on there.  I
> > decided to update the BIOS on the machine to the latest version.  I
> > discovered that the BIOS flash update program from the Dell website is
> > designed to run under Windows.  So, it's a good thing I hadn't erased
> > Windows or I couldn't update the BIOS.
> 
> No you don't.  Yes you could.
> 
> http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Tech/libsmbios
> http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Repository/firmware
> 
> They even have links to building a Fedora run-live to do it.
> 
> Then there's always flashrom that seems to support just about
> anything... 
> 
> yum info flashrom
> 
> Available Packages
> Name        : flashrom
> Arch        : x86_64
> Version     : 0.9.3
> Release     : 0.1.svn1205.fc14
> Size        : 101 k
> Repo        : updates
> Summary     : Simple program for reading/writing BIOS chips content
> URL         : http://flashrom.org
> License     : GPLv2
> Description : Utility which can be used to detect BIOS chips (DIP, PLCC), read
>             : their contents and write new contents on the chips ("flash the
>             : chip").
> 
> I think that comes from the coreboot project, iirc.
> 
> > Just thought I'd pass that along.
> > 
> > Ron

> Regards,
> Mike

-- 

(PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new messages very quickly.)

Ron Frazier

770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message.
linuxdude AT c3energy.com