System76 Unveils Their Firmware Manager Project For Graphically Updating Firmware

[mmstick]

But...fwupd has a D-Bus API that's what Software and Discover call into... I just don't see why build an abstraction layer on top of another abstraction layer.

Firmware Manager is using DBus to communicate with fwupd and system76-firmware in the same way that Software and Discover are. It is not building on top of another abstraction layer. It is the abstraction layer. The GTK frontend is on the same level as Software and Discover.

[horizonbrave]

I can't stand System76 for pushing Nvidia to Linux users.. so I guess I'll just join the public bashing, it won't do any damage!

[Britoid]

Isn't Elementarys AppCenter adding fwupd support?

but on a serious note, the point of fwupd/lvfs is to remove the junk that is vendor-specific updaters, this is a step back in that direction. Should we now expect Lenovo, HP, Dell etc to make their own firmware updater guis/services?

If I'm building an OS image that's going to get deployed on multiple machines, do I bundle this in that gets installed on all machines or now have to make a system76 specific build if we have those computers? there's a reason fwupd was a sigh of relief.

[Awesomeness]

What are you not understanding?

I'm understanding everything: You wrote system76-firmware as NIH alternative to fwupd instead of distributing your firmware through fwupd like almost everybody else.

[FLHerne]

...

1. Firmware Manager is open source, its on GitHub, and it is under the GNU GPLv3 license.
2. It does not run anything as root. It communicates to fwupd and system76-firmware through DBus.

Thank you for your work on this, and providing polite, useful explanations even when faced with the sadly-usual Phoronix spam.

(I still don't really see why you can't use fwupd only, but that only matters to system76 customers -- for everyone else this is simply a standalone fwupd GUI, which is unquestionably a good thing).

[jrch2k8]

I'm understanding everything: You wrote system76-firmware as NIH alternative to fwupd instead of distributing your firmware through fwupd like almost everybody else.

this is more likely a lawyers issue than a NIH issue with a good in the meantime solution for both sides, system76 is not a behemoth like Dell or HP so the hardware manufacturer have more weight here and is likely the hardware vendors set some restrictions that made it incompatible with LVFS rules for now(lawyer wise not technically wise)

Anyway, kudos to system76 to add a nice gui to fwupd(i use gnome but i'm not really a fan of gnome software)

[vubbjeez]

this is more likely a lawyers issue than a NIH issue with a good in the meantime solution for both sides, system76 is not a behemoth like Dell or HP so the hardware manufacturer have more weight here and is likely the hardware vendors set some restrictions that made it incompatible with LVFS rules for now(lawyer wise not technically wise)

It's their own fault for partnering with Clevo (or similar ODM) for their ugly laptops. Other boutique/indie Linux hardware vendors like Star Labs don't have this problem and have regular BIOS/EFI, Embedded Controller or SSD firmware updates pushed via LVFS/fwupd without much hassle.

[Panda_Wrist]

I'm understanding everything: You wrote system76-firmware as NIH alternative to fwupd instead of distributing your firmware through fwupd like almost everybody else.

You are completely missing the point for this software. Lets say System76 did use fwupd, guess what? they would of still made this. They didn't like how the graphical frontend for fwupd was tied into gnome software and they didn't want their own firmware delivery method tied to a software application.

This Firmware Manager works with both, so that system76 owners and owners of other stuff can use the same gui and don't have to use gnome software.

And someone mentioned with system76 doing their own thing, whats stopping others from doing their own thing as well. Nothing. Sure right now most companies that are doing this have gone the fwupd route, but if they wanted to they could easily spin up their own thing. This is where this nice piece of software comes in handy. It supports both system76-firmware and fwupd. It can also be made to support any other hardware vendor spec as long as that company makes it open enough.

So thank you mmstick keep up the great work! though two complaints, support my broadwell lemur (nothing wrong with it just sad that it isn't supported) and get amd laptops, yeah i know clevo doesn't do amd, but you guys support linux and you know the linux community prefers open source stuff over closed source stuff.

[mmstick]

I'm understanding everything: You wrote system76-firmware as NIH alternative to fwupd instead of distributing your firmware through fwupd like almost everybody else.

The article that you're commenting on is about the new Firmware Manager. It is not system76-firmware. system76-firmware is simply one of the supported backends of Firmware Manager, in addition to fwupd.

Addtionally, no one ever said that we would never use fwupd or LVFS. Once it meets our needs, and the decision is made to do so, the Firmware Manager would make such a transition seamless.

[JanW]

This basically kills buying a system76 computer for me.

1) Security: All possible methods to update firmware have the potential to be open to error or attack. Do I prefer a system supported and maintained by many large vendors and the linux foundation, or a homespun one from a small vendor? They got the argument that fwupd increases attack surface with respect to the system76-firmware back-end backwards. Classical case of "we are infallible and inherently trustworthy but others are not".

2) Use of proprietary closed blobs to perform the update: No word on why this is needed or a good idea, only hand-waving that other stuff in firmware is proprietary as well so we shouldn't care. They may be right or wrong, but what I have read so far is not convincing.

3) Bad communication: Here the dev tells us that it is about the gui, about not relying on gnome-software etc. Not credible, because they proved that this can be solved with their front-end to fwupd. Why not host their firmware there then? Their entire communication looks to me like a smoke screen in front of what seems to be the real reason hinted at in their blog post: A centralized fwupd service might allow someone to deduce how many machines from system76 are out there. Simple case of them wanting to keep their stats to themselves. That may be a sound reasoning from the perspective of a company (though others seem to have either found a way around that or don't have a problem with it). But as a user, I don't care. Why should I put up with 1) and 2) for the corporate interests of system76? I see no reason at all.

Yes, Linux is about choice. So a new GUI as a front-end to fwupd is very welcome, well done system76! To me as someone who is not their customer that is great, and I may actually use it. But the main motivation behind this seems to be to create a way to lock their customers into their proprietary way of distributing firmware. Not what I would want so I'll make sure I won't become one of their customers.