How To Update Dell Firmware on Fedora 20
After a recent build on a Dell Laptop to Fedora 20 I found the need to update the BIOS on the laptop. With Windows this is a simple solution of downloading and installing. With Linux it is a bit more to do.
First we must install firmware-addon-dell.
$ sudo yum -y install firmware-addon-dell
Next we need to get the SystemID for the system to be able to download the correct update.
$ sudo /usr/sbin/getSystemId
Download the latest BIOS “.HDR” file for this system. Go here: http://linux.dell.com/repo/firmware/bios-hdrs/. Scroll down the list to find a directory matching the System ID from the previous step. The directory will be named: system_bios_ven_0x1028_dev_SYSTEM_ID_version_BIOS_VERSION. Go into this directory and download the file, “bios.hdr”.
Load dell_rbu module.
$ sudo modprobe dell_rbu
Apply the BIOS update that you just downloaded.
$ sudo dellBiosUpdate -u -f ./bios.hdr
System should update and reboot.
I wish it worked – trying in fedora 22 – step 2
# /usr/sbin/getSystemId
ERROR: Could not parse system SMBIOS table.
Common problems are:
— Insufficient permissions to perform operation.
Try running as a more privileged account.
Linux : run as ‘root’ user
Windows: run as ‘administrator’ user
— dell_rbu or dcdbas device drivers not loaded.
Try loading the dell_rbu driver
Linux : modprobe dell_rbu
Windows: dell_rbu driver not yet available.
Could not find any modprobe, dell-rbu or dcdbas packages to download
Wish it worked.
I just did a fresh install of Fedora 22 Workstation on a Dell Latitude E6410 and ran sudo dnf -y install firmware-addon-dell and after the install I ran sudo /usr/sbin/getSystemId and got back results. Look in /usr/sbin and make sure getSystemId is there.