Fwupd 1.7.5 Adds New Hardware Support, Prepares For EOL/Alternative Firmware

Fwupd 1.7.5 is out as the latest feature update to this open-source solution for updating system and component firmware under Linux that is easily distributed by the Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS).

Notable with fwupd 1.7.5 is that it's working to move along the recently talked about idea of offering alternative, open-source firmware for end-of-life devices. While LVFS is centered around the hardware vendors themselves uploading their official firmware images for distribution to fwupd users, this new approach is about allowing end-of-life devices to potentially see updated firmware via Coreboot ports and other alternatives in cases where the vendor is no longer maintaining any level of support. Especially if LVFS begins making it easy to deploy Coreboot open-source firmware for end-of-life hardware, it's nice for extending the life of the hardware and increasing the security outlook.

This end-of-life alternative firmware effort is still being sorted out but with Fwupd 1.7.5 it adds a flag to indicate the firmware is not provided by the vendor and there is also support for marking a device as End-Of-Life by the OEM vendor, both changes being important steps in this old hardware support crusade.

Fwupd 1.7.5 also adds support for showing dependency versions in its JSON, support for operating in socket mode without a D-Bus daemon, specifying a machine's best known configuration locally, and a variety of bug fixes.

New hardware support with the Fwupd 1.7.5 release is for handling future Analogix devices and NovaCustom NV4x laptops. The Analogix devices appear to be for devices coming from Belkin, Kensington, and Acer. NovaCustom NV40 series laptops are a line of 14-inch Coreboot-based laptops with a choice of Core i5-1135G7 or i7-1165G7 Tiger Lake processors. More details on those NovaCustom Coreboot laptops via ConfigureLaptop.eu.

Coreboot-powered NovaCustom NV40 Laptop

Downloads and more details on Fwupd 1.7.5 via GitHub.