ASUS Offers First Motherboard Firmware Update Via LVFS+Fwupd For Linux Users

[Guest]

I recently learned the hard way that Asus is blocking flashing an old, previous BIOS in their official firmware. That is rather customer freedom limiting, and rather waste of time if the new BIOS is worse, e.g. worse memory timing or other AGESA glitches. All vendors should be force to allow users to load any version they want, this is really a waste of time for everyone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6OpVbLKPQQ

I think that might be a security feature, many UEFI/BIOS do have a toggle for rolling back to older versions. Are you sure there isn't some such option in yours?

[rene]

I think that might be a security feature, many UEFI/BIOS do have a toggle for rolling back to older versions. Are you sure there isn't some such option in yours?

Well, "security", right? To protect the user from themselves, ...? Yes, I am sure. The Asus boards don't have an option like this and simply don't allow to flash previous versions.

[RSpliet]

Aaaaaand it's gone. Link to the firmware is dead now, seems Asus removed it again.

[leech]

You guys know you can update a BIOS on an ASUS board right in the UEFI GUI right? Not only that, but also back up the old one. You don't need an OS.

Maybe doing it from inside the OS is convenient, but not necessary.

The point though is that you don't know that one is available unless you go looking. Whereas with fwupd (at least under Gnome where I've used it) there's a legit notification that says one is available.

Also, for anyone who has never noticed, Logitech supports it as well. Now that's not on the motherboard level, but I plugged one of their Unified Device USB dongles into my Thinkpad running Pop_OS and it actually said I had a vulnerability in and suggested I install the firmware update. Ran without a hitch. Amazing progress since the days of having to track down a DOS boot disk or install Windows for Firmware updates!

Now if only we can get more official support from other vendors of peripherals too. Would love to get the mapping software for my Thrustmaster Warthog to work under Linux...

[Guest]

Well, "security", right? To protect the user from themselves, ...? Yes, I am sure. The Asus boards don't have an option like this and simply don't allow to flash previous versions.

To make it harder for malicious software on your OS to replace the UEFI with a modified version that could include malware, spyware etc.