Linux BIOS/UEFI Updating Is Going To Get Much Better With UEFI 2.5
Officially the latest version of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) specification is v2.4, but v2.5 is going to bring a feature that will make the technology more exciting for Linux users rather than just always bringing up negative thoughts due to UEFI Secure Boot issues of the past. The UEFI 2.5 specification will standardize the mechanisms for updating of BIOS images. Peter Jones, who is a member of the UEFI Working Group, and others at Red Hat are working to ensure the Linux support is in good shape for being able to take advantage of the UEFI 2.5 support for updating the BIOS from the Linux desktop.
On systems with UEFI 2.5+, the goal is to make it easy to update your system's BIOS via the GNOME Software program. BIOS updates would come down the pipe just like regular software updates. The Red Hat / Fedora developers working on this UEFI support are also working with motherboard vendors to ensure they publish their BIOS updates in a compatible way that they can automatically check for and collect. Those involved are hoping to form a FreeDesktop.org specification for handling BIOS updates on Linux.
More details about the UEFI 2.5 Linux BIOS updating can be found via this blog post written a few minutes ago by Christian Schaller of Red Hat. This is great news for Linux-friendly BIOS updates, although more motherboard vendors in recent years have been putting out bootable images for facilitating updates, rather than having to mess with Windows-only programs for BIOS updates. Aside from workstation/server motherboards, very few vendors have put out Linux utilities to update their products' BIOS. From the Coreboot community is also Flashrom as an open-source program for flashing, albeit it works only for certain chipsets and isn't officially supported by the major motherboard/laptop vendors.
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