LVFS Serves Up 2+ Million Firmware Downloads In The Past Month

[phoronix]

Phoronix: LVFS Serves Up 2+ Million Firmware Downloads In The Past Month

The Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS) in conjunction with FWUPD for offering easy-to-deploy firmware updates on Linux continues its meteoric rise...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=LVFS-2-Million-Downloads

[uid313]

Does Update Manager or GNOME Software integrate with fwupd?

My computer have never found any updates from LVFS, maybe because my computer is old, or because I built it myself and it is not from a OEM like Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc.

I would really love to see motherboard manufacturers like Asus, Asrock, Gigabyte, MSI, etc join LVFS.

[Vorpal]

At least for (modern) Asus motherboards you can download the bios with a browser, put the file on an USB stick and update from inside the bios.

But yeah, most(?) motherboard manufacturers don't support lvfs. There is a vendor list on the website you can check: https://fwupd.org/lvfs/vendors/

[ChristianSchaller]

Does Update Manager or GNOME Software integrate with fwupd?

Yes, GNOMe Software integrates with fwupd, so if firmare exists for any of your components then GNOME Software should tell. you

But yeah, vendors have so far not tended to 'backdate' their LVFS support. So unless your system was supported by LVFS from the beginning then
it is unlikely to get supported later on. And as someone else said, the hardware component makers who sell directly to consumers haven't signed on in a
major way yet.

[Vistaus]

Yes, GNOMe Software integrates with fwupd, so if firmare exists for any of your components then GNOME Software should tell. you

But yeah, vendors have so far not tended to 'backdate' their LVFS support. So unless your system was supported by LVFS from the beginning then
it is unlikely to get supported later on. And as someone else said, the hardware component makers who sell directly to consumers haven't signed on in a
major way yet.

They're also rather picky. For example, my ThinkPad L380 Yoga isn't supported, but some other ThinkPad models from the same gen are.

[ChristianSchaller]

They're also rather picky. For example, my ThinkPad L380 Yoga isn't supported, but some other ThinkPad models from the same gen are.

Yeah, vendors have chosen to support certain product lines/models with Linux so not every system is necessarily supported, but at least both Lenovo and Dell has steadily been broadening their support, so hopefully we will get to a point where all systems are supported.

[caligula]

At least for (modern) Asus motherboards you can download the bios with a browser, put the file on an USB stick and update from inside the bios.

But yeah, most(?) motherboard manufacturers don't support lvfs. There is a vendor list on the website you can check: https://fwupd.org/lvfs/vendors/

It's annoying that most consumer devices don't have any kind of support. E.g. SSD drives from Kingston, Samsung, Crucial, OCZ etc. can't be updated. Updating the BIOS has been pretty straightforward since early 2000s. BIOS ROMs can directly read from FAT partitions. However, these other devices might not support any kind of updates via Linux/Freedos. Need to install Windows just to make this small update, which is highly annoying. Doesn't necessarily even support updates inside a QEMU VM. I know there's the Samsung Magician tool for Linux, but on my system only the old legacy version could be started, yet it could not update anything.

[barti_ddu]

OCZ had native linux firmware update/diagnosic tools well before LVFS, both command-line (clout) and GUI (SSDGuru/SSDutility, - quite nice statically linked Qt applications). They are still operational, even for a very old drives (like Deneva v1 or Petrol for example).

[hughsie]

E.g. SSD drives from Kingston, Samsung, Crucial, OCZ etc. can't be updated.

I might have some exciting news in the next 6 months. Hold onto your hats.

[caligula]

OCZ had native linux firmware update/diagnosic tools well before LVFS, both command-line (clout) and GUI (SSDGuru/SSDutility, - quite nice statically linked Qt applications). They are still operational, even for a very old drives (like Deneva v1 or Petrol for example).

Ah good point. Now I remember there was this tool, but there were zero updates after I bought the Vertex 3 drive so couldn't try it out. Anyway I guess that's ok since the drive didn't have any issues unlike Samsungs have had.