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FWUPD Linux Firmware Updater Prepares "Best Known Configuration" Feature

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  • FWUPD Linux Firmware Updater Prepares "Best Known Configuration" Feature

    Phoronix: FWUPD Linux Firmware Updater Prepares "Best Known Configuration" Feature

    The Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS) and FWUPD on their great upward trajectory has in recent times been expanding beyond their initial focus of desktop/laptop hardware to supporting more server platforms for firmware updating. The latest feature driven by their growing server interests is "best known configuration" handling for where there are multiple independently-versioned firmware packages for a given system and may be support recommendations or potential version conflicts between the the different firmware packages...

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    Great. Now where's the support from big motherboard vendors?

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    • #3
      Originally posted by tildearrow View Post
      Great. Now where's the support from big motherboard vendors?
      Yes. Or laptop manufacturers. My 1 year old HP Elitebook can't upgrade bios. I would like to upgrade bios because it has a bug (same keycode for both more and less screen brightness, and to mute the microphone, would you believe it).
      Last edited by andreano; 29 November 2021, 02:59 PM.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by andreano View Post

        Yes. Or laptop manufacturers. My 1 year old HP Elitebook can't upgrade bios. I would like to upgrade bios because it has a bug (same keycode for both more and less screen brightness, and to mute the microphone, would you believe it).
        It depends completely on the vendor. My old 2016 lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga has been getting regular updates for years, as is my new Thinkpad T14s.

        My understanding is that the business oriented notebook lines from Lenovo and Dell are your best bet for good support.

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        • #5
          I think that this option is very dangerous. Manufacturers don't want testing newer firmware version combinations. Except for major bugs or security issues that could cause big issues to customers, manufacturers will not update their "Best Known Configuration". In the end, there is a big risk of newer firmware fixing bugs not getting much testing (specially not a lot of interactions between versions) because most users will trust the manufacturer's "Best Known Configuration".

          In my opinion a better option would be FWUPD tracking past configurations and accepting the user marking the current setting as "working", so if in the future the system have firmware issues you could go to a specific past configuration or the "Last Known Working Configuration".

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          • #6
            In addition to my last post, if the "Best Known Configuration" option is implemented, I think that it would be better if the name is "Last Manufacturer's Suggested Configuration".

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            • #7
              Originally posted by andresdju View Post
              ...manufacturers will not update their "Best Known Configuration"....
              The plan is to update it 4 times per year. It's 100% opt-in for vendors.

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              • #8
                Originally posted by tildearrow View Post
                Great. Now where's the support from big motherboard vendors?
                Can you email them and ask for LVFS support? They'll only do it if there's enough consumer demand.

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by hughsie View Post

                  The plan is to update it 4 times per year. It's 100% opt-in for vendors.
                  That's exactly what I'm worried about. The vendor defines a "Best Known Configuration" and doesn't update again, or if updating is mandatory can update the profile with the same or similar outdated configurations. Then nearly everyone uses that configuration, because who wouldn't want to use the "Best Known Configuration". Then most newer firmware doesn't get tested on this system and for the vendor is good publicity supporting FWUPD but their system don't getting many of any updates. I still believe that something like "Latest suggested configuration" is a much better name, and having a "Last known working configuration" would be ideal.

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by hughsie View Post

                    Can you email them and ask for LVFS support? They'll only do it if there's enough consumer demand.
                    I posted it here intentionally.

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