UEFI Firmware Update Support To Be Backported To Ubuntu 15.04

With Linux 4.2 there is UEFI ESRT support as a necessary prerequisite for supporting UEFI firmware upgrades / capsule upgrades. That kernel System Resource Table support is in the process of being back-ported for riding on Ubuntu 15.04's kernel.

The EFI System Resource Table (ESRT) support is being sent down as a stable release update for Ubuntu 15.04. While on the user-space side there's still work happening, ESRT is the necessary kernel item that must first be supported. The EFI System Resource Table was part of the UEFI 2.5 specification and is responsible for providing a list of system components that accept firmware upgrades via the UEFI Capsule Update specification.

Up to now we've mostly seen Fedora/RedHat developers leading the charge for the UEFI Capsule Upgrades on Linux so it's great to see Ubuntu/Canonical also taking interest. SRU details for Ubuntu 15.04/Vivid can be found via this Launchpad bug report.