Let's Talk Firmware Updates. Can Someone Explain How Things Work?

[monomaniac]

Firmware updates have always been confusing to me. It always said 2 devices have the latest updates and other 10 are not updateable for a long time.

Recently I got warnings about firmware updates but system update couldn’t update it and I had to install a “Firmware” app via Bazaar to perform updates.

Today I had the following:

This syntax is totally new to me. Does “10 devices are updateable” mean there are updates for them available; or does it simply mean “you can update them if an update is ever released?”

About the second part where it says “2 devices are supported in the enabled remotes (an update has been published,) does it mean there is an update currently available? I am checking the Firmware app and there is no update available there.

Long story short, I have no idea how to interpret frmupdmgr. I don’t know if it actually updates anything at all, because so far I had to use a GUI app to update firmware. Language used isn’t clear and I am confused.

Thanks for any replies in advance and have a great day

[inffy]

It lists the “metadata” for devices that have been added to lvfs. Then it checks if there are support for updating them through.

All of this prtetty much depends on your manufacturer, do they provide updates through lvfs (most don’t).

you can see if there actually are update with

sudo fwupdmgr get-updates and then run sudo fwupdmgr update to install them (if there are any)

[monomaniac]

One more question. Does the Firmware GUI app use the same method as the CLI? I am asking because of this issue I had about a week ago:

Firmware Update Warning - Do I Need to Take Any Further Action?

Today I got this firmware update when I ran the system update tool: [dbx] So I thought a firmware update was performed and restarted the system, but when I run the system update tool this text is still there. I am not sure if I need to perform something else to get the update installed. Do I need to do something else here? Should I be worried? Sorry I really couldn’t make a sense of what this is trying to tell me and don’t want to miss a critical security update. Thanks a lot in advance.

Why couldn’t System Update apply this new firmware, for example? I had to use the GUI app to actually install the firmware. My concern is, a regular end user expects System Update to perform all updates and it gives the impression it’s applying updates while all it does it state if there are new updates or not. If I hadn’t come across the GUI app by pure coincidence, I wouldn’t be able to install these firmware updates.

Maybe you could include the GUI app in the image for future builds and direct users to that? If I’m sounding off the mark or dumb please let me know

[Yasumoto]

Determining the default apps for a distro is always a tricky decision, but agreed this one would be nice to have.

That said, the GUI GNOME Firmware app does use libfwupd under the covers, and is also written by the mighty Richard Hughes.