Flashing Your BIOS From The Linux Desktop

[energyman]

bridgeman has a good point. Even if I had windows installed, I would still flash with freedos.
It is so easy! systemrescuecd on usbstick. Copy flash file and flasher from mobo vendor on stick, boot from stick, choose freedos, flash.

Since a lot of driver cds from mobo vendors come with freedos this days it is a lot less risky then some 3rd party tool...

[Kano]

If you have got Asus or Gigabyte boards they have got the flash tool inside the bios already. Only put it onto a fat partition on hd or partitioned usb stick (not superfloppy mode).

[energyman]

yeah - except that a friend had to RMA an asus board in January after a failed flash - and not even the floppy/usb bios boot worked anymore.

Nice in theory, but fails in practice too.

[energyman]

i didnt think any modern operating system made bios calls.

http://www.coreboot.org/FAQ#Which_different_operating_systems_will_coreboot_boot.3F

the flashrom utility looks great, now i just need something from coreboot to replace the crappy bios i am stuck with now. (asus and gigabyte bios suck)

matt

maybe not the OS. But the hardware does. Ever heard of SMM? Look into that mess and weep.

[Duo Maxwell]

I think I'll stick with boot floppies running freedos thank you, too big a chance of bricking...

good thing some boards now have the utility built into the bios itself to grab the flash from a usb stick.

[bugmenot]

I also use generally the flash tool inside my bios, but flashrom is a great alternative. I flashed many board with it already, everytime without problems. It's not true though that almost every mainboard is supported. Almost every chip is supported but many mainboards need some special instruction to allow flashing, but I i asked in the IRC channel and they helped my and now everyone with my mainboard can flash out of the box. I don't think that is soo dangerous with linux, but of course there is everytime a risk. I really suggest everyone to play with it.

And what coreboot does is awesome, they provide a fast and stable firmware for many mainboards, but not on mine yet. AMD does also help there with code. A mainboard vendor should create a coreboot by default board I'd buy it at once. The BIOS is the last unfree part of my system. And its the most bad part of my system, too. Slow, buggy, simply bad. It seems that there is coreboot code for 780G chips, but they are not allowed to release it. I'd be so happy!

[DanL]

If you have got Asus or Gigabyte boards they have got the flash tool inside the bios already.

My two AMD 7x0 Biostar mobos have it, and IIRC, my last MSI 690G board had it too. They all have AMI BIOS's.

[deanjo]

My two AMD 7x0 Biostar mobos have it, and IIRC, my last MSI 690G board had it too. They all have AMI BIOS's.

Some manufacturer's even have memtest86 in the bios which I think is one hell of a great place for it. (IIRC it was DFI)

[planckscnst]

Bricked mine

I used it because the wiki has a list of mainboards and says it most likely supports your even if it's not on the list. There were a couple boars similar to mine. I thought, if it doesn't work, I can just clear the cmos to reset it.

It didn't work. I can't boot; I just get an incorrect beep code. Resetting the CMOS didn't work either. I'm pretty much screwed.

[Saiot]

what does "cross-flashing" and "hot-flashing" means?