Updating the BIOS on Dell systems

BIOS update utilities and files are often provided as Windows executable files. This guide provides information for Dell users to use such files without using Windows or any emulation software.

Using biosdisk

biosdisk is a utility maintained by John Hull at Dell. There isn't an official Ubuntu package yet but the provided downloadable archive has an installer which can be used to upgrade your BIOS from Ubuntu.

biosdisk simplifies the process of flashing your system BIOS under Linux on Dell desktops and laptops. The purpose of this utility is to create a bootable BIOS flash image using the raw BIOS flash executable images (e.g. WS360A05.exe) available from support.dell.com. An RPM, SRPM, and tarball for this project are available at http://linux.dell.com/biosdisk.

The project consists of a shell script that, when executed, creates a FreeDOS floppy image at a location of your choosing. This project is intended for Dell desktop and laptop customers and not PowerEdge customers, since Linux BIOS flash packages are already available for PowerEdge systems, and raw executable BIOS flash images are not.

To use the biosdisk utility to create a BIOS flash image, first download the latest raw BIOS image for your system from support.dell.com or ftp://ftp.dell.com/bios. You then have one of several options: create a floppy, create a dd floppy image, create a user-installable distribution-specific package (e.g. RPM), or actually install the image for your bootloader.

Installing biosdisk for Ubuntu

1. Download the latest tarball (.tar.gz archive) version of biosdisk from http://linux.dell.com/biosdisk to your home directory. Version 0.65 was released in 2004 and is the latest as of September 2007.

2. Open a terminal window by going to Applications | Accessories | Terminal

3. Extract the archive:  tar -zxvf biosdisk-0.65.tar.gz 

4. Edit the first line of the install.sh script to use bash instead of sh:

 gedit install.sh 

1. The line should look like this once edited:  #!/bin/bash

2. In the same file, comment out the line where templates for rpm systems are copied. The last few lines of the file should then look like this: {{{ #install -m 644 biosdisk-mkrpm-redhat-template.spec /usr/share/biosdisk

#install -m 644 biosdisk-mkrpm-generic-template.spec /usr/share/biosdisk install -m 644 biosdisk.8.gz /usr/share/man/man8 }}}

1. Two packages are needed for biosdisk to work. They are both part of the main repository. The following command will install them:

 sudo apt-get install tofrodos syslinux 

1. Edit the first line of the biosdisk file to use bash instead of sh:  gedit biosdisk 

2. The line should look like this once edited:  #!/bin/bash

3. Now the install script can be invoked:  sudo ./install.sh 

4. If you don't get any output, the install should have completed succesfully. To verify your installation is complete, invoke biosdisk without any parameters, as root:  sudo biosdisk 

Creating a bootable floppy disk

The mkfloppy action will create the biosdisk image and write it directly to a floppy disk. Usage is the following:  biosdisk mkfloppy [-o option] [-d device] [-k baseimage] /path/to/.exe 

If you are using an external USB floppy drive, make sure you use the -d option to refer to it, for example:

Creating a floppy disk image file

The mkimage action will create a floppy image on the user's hard drive. Usage is the following:  biosdisk mkimage [-o option] [-i destination] [-k baseimage] /path/to/.exe 

Creating a RedHat / Fedora package

The mkpkg action will create the floppy image, and use it to create a user-installable package specific to the distribution (example: RPM). When the package is installed, it will use the distribution's built-in tools to update the system's bootloader so that the user can boot to the image from the hard drive to flash the BIOS, without needing a floppy drive. Currently only Red Hat/Fedora RPM packages are supported. This method will not work in Ubuntu. Usage is as follows:  biosdisk mkpkg [-o option] [--install] [--distro=] [--name=] [--version=] [--release=] /path/to/{.exe | .img} 

Installing an image in the bootloader

The install action will create the biosdisk image, copy the image file to /boot, and then update the bootloader with an entry for the image. Then all the user has to do is boot the system and select the image to flash the BIOS; this will load the biosdisk image directly from the hard drive and flash the BIOS. Usage:  biosdisk install [-o option] [--name=] /path/to/{.exe | .img}