System76 Unveils Their Firmware Manager Project For Graphically Updating Firmware

[mmstick]

I am afraid this product is more of a result of bad communication or conflicting constraints between system76 and LVFS

This product (Firmware Manager) has nothing to do with the decision to keep our firmware on our servers, with our firmware service, for the time being. In fact, both the `system76-firmware` and `fwupd` features are purely optional at compile-time, so you can use it without system76 firmware support if you only care about fwupd. This is about making firmware updates accessible to all end users, regardless of their choice of Linux distribution or desktop environment.

We don't really see application centers as being the place for firmware updates on our desktop, and anyone who happens to be on a distribution without one of the supported application centers can only get firmware updates if they manually check for them on a command line. That's simply not good enough. So here we offer a solution which can exist on its own, separate from any application center, and which can be easily integrated into any other solution, if you'd like to add a firmware update section in your application.

[johanb]

I am afraid this product is more of a result of bad communication or conflicting constraints between system76 and LVFS than a NIH situation as mentioned above in some comments. I haven't fully understood the whole story on what went down or what the problem is.

Here is a blog post from the lvfs lead developer and a blog post from system76 about their problems.

Thanks for those links, that was a good read which showed both sides of the coin.

It definitely is a tricky situation I can't deny that, but if you want to replace a well working standard component you really should have more thorough discussion.

What they should have done in my opinion would be to have an actual conversation instead of sending slightly passive-aggressive mails back and forth, people are much more humble and understanding when looking someone in the face. It did not seem like an impossible thing to solve, only a hard one.

[loganj]

i have a simple question: does that mean that you can't use fwupd on their systems?
edit: or unable to remove their own software?

[Alliancemd]

i have a simple question: does that mean that you can't use fwupd on their systems?
edit: or unable to remove their own software?

Please read the article again(supports 2 services). And also what mmstick just wrote...

Annoying when people overreact and spread FUD.

[ThoreauHD]

Well, I hate you all. There. But on a serious note, we should have more firmware updating options, not less. Everyone is focused on the bios, but there are 10 other component firmware updates that are windows only, that get zero attention. Touchpad EC, IME, Thunderbolt, Storage, DVD's, TPM 1 & 2, etc.

Those are what's kicking everyone's ass right now. Those firmware dep's will spin your linux install, and simply running it, off into a ditch.

Who addresses that, LVFS or S76 or random guy, gets a cookie from me. I'm tired of telling people that windows needs to go back on to update ALL of the firmware.

I appreciate what S76 does. I appreciate what Richard and foundation does. But if you think this is a complete solution, it ain't(on either side). We got bigger problems than this pissing contest. On the server side, this is dealt with via HP PSP or Dell SUU. On the consumer side, we just ignore it and hope the pc doesn't break. There needs to be more effort put into device component support, not dicking over which gui/cli is more better(although in S76's case, that is an imperitive). That's all I have to say on the matter. Don't miss the forest. That's what's killing off your potential customer base.

[Awesomeness]

Would you like to explain to your customers, and all of you end users, why they need to use command line applications in order to check for firmware updates, read their changelogs, and apply the updates? Or do you want to give them automatic desktop notifications that open a nicely-designed UI where they can read changelogs and update firmware at the click of a button (or the return key of a keyboard)?

That's not the point. I just proved that the underlying framework works completely autonomous of Gnome and Plasma – i.e. you lied. You could have written a different front-end for fwupd, instead of rolling you NIH piece of garbage.

[loganj]

Alliancemd i just had to ask because it felt so strange to me how people reacted. i thought that maybe i misunderstood something about linux and choices in general

[F.Ultra]

Developer of the firmware manager here. This is an excellent summary of the project!



Would you like to explain to your customers, and all of you end users, why they need to use command line applications in order to check for firmware updates, read their changelogs, and apply the updates? Or do you want to give them automatic desktop notifications that open a nicely-designed UI where they can read changelogs and update firmware at the click of a button (or the return key of a keyboard)?

Well if we are going to play the "being snarky" game then perhaps one day you will discover what kind of magic you can do with the dup2+fork+execv combo...

edit: and of course I should have read the linked blog post before posting...

[simonsaysthis]

fwupdmgr is a command line application not tied to anything by Gnome or KDE.

Why are they lying to force their NIH crap?

thanks for being a shining and faithful beacon for what is wrong with the Linux community.

[mmstick]

That's not the point. I just proved that the underlying framework works completely autonomous of Gnome and Plasma – i.e. you lied. You could have written a different front-end for fwupd, instead of rolling you NIH piece of garbage.

This is a front-end for fwupd, and it also supports system76-firmware. It's also independent of any Linux distribution, desktop environment, application store, and UI toolkit; albeit there is only a GTK interface at the moment. What are you not understanding?