LVFS Activity Going Wild Ahead Of New Security Disclosure Requiring Firmware Update

[QwertyChouskie]

Asus doesn't seem to have anything on fwupd? Are they generally good with updating firmware for the product you have? No issues with Linux? (Installing via EZ Flash is fine, better than requiring Windows installed like Acer).

All BIOS updates come with both Windows-based installers and the BIOS files directly for use with EZ Flash. (e.g. https://www.asus.com/us/SupportOnly/...HelpDesk_BIOS/) I just put the BIOS file on my EFI partition (/boot/efi/EFI/) for easy access to flash. Speaking of which, looks like I have an update to install, lemme reboot real quick

S2Idle didn't work properly when I first got the unit, but that was a kernel issue that affected most modern AMD laptops, not a firmware bug. It's fixed in more recent kernels.

[pal666]

There are vendors who do support LVFS, on at least some of their systems, so you will still have options.

it's of little help when you need motherboard

[stormcrow]

That's better than MSI. This notebook I have ships with the original firmware. They never even provided updates to it in the year and a half since launch. They also didn't bother to "certify" it for Windows 11 either.

I so miss my old Dell that supported LVFS...

I rejoiced when I saw in a big yellow background message when checking Dell support page for the current firmware version for my older laptop they won't support Windows 11 for it. That makes it far less likely I'll have to bother with continuously refusing Windows 11 Home on it. It's a dual boot machine so I don't want the headache of the upgrade for one. I also don't want anything to do with Windows 11 Home because of MS insisting on Home users having a MS account to even use the blasted thing (initially). The desktop will probably eventually end up with 11, but it's using Pro and I can limit some of the worst of MS's cloud BS with group policies not available for Home.

[Adarion]

Maybe they should have kept up with the K.I.S.,S! principle. UEFI is failure by design. So is (f)TPM/ME/TEE/PSP, Pluton and all that other crap. Complexity, obscurity and backdoors. The opposite of making things safe and secure.

By the way, will be interesting to see if this will also brick boxes around the world. Wouldn't be the first time that something comes out in a rush, but flashing firmware with the wrong settings or code can really mess up a system.

[MarkG]

My 2013 vintage Dell laptop, and 2 mobo's with AMD CPUs, have gotten updates that were between 2 weeks and 1 month old. All had firmware that was less than 3 months old.

My friend that runs a so-called super computer center in the EU tells me they've been running around updating firmware to all their machines over the last couple of weeks.

So, while speculation is worthless (at least on *my* part), I think it will be fun to read the CVEs when the embargo expires. Regardless, thanks for giving me a reason to update everything!

[zilexa]

What about HP? Do HP laptops support LVFS?

[mangeek]

Could the timing of the traffic have more to do with a few big hosting providers having a firmware update schedule in the middle of months 1 and 6 of the year? Just checking if this is a chicken or egg kind of thing, seems like the last big spike was around the same week, but at month #6 of the year.