If like me, you have a Dell laptop running linux and you want to bring your firmware up to date, you’ll realise that the executables downloadable from Dell’s support site require Windows OS to run. Or do they? The good new is No. They don’t.
OK, so they won’t run on Linux either, but they will run from a FreeDOS command line.
Long story short, download SystemRescueCD
Create a bootable USB Stick using THESE instructions…
mkdir -p /tmp/cdrom
sudo mount -o loop,exec ~/Downloads/systemrescuecd-x86-4.5.4.iso #your version maybe newer!
plug in the usb stick #be prepared to loose everything on it!
cd /tmp/cdrom
sudo bash ./usb_inst.sh
Create a folder on the USB stick called Dell for example, and copy the BIOS update for your computer into it.
Boot the computer with the USB stick and choose the FreeDOS option (it can be found in one of the menus), otherwise it’ll boot into the default linux command line environment, and you don’t want that for this.
At the FreeDOS command prompt A:> change to C:> and type dir to view the files on the USB stick.
You should see the Dell directory you created. cd into the Dell directory and run the executable BIOS upgrade program.
Reboot into your Linux OS. The following commands show the firmware level and other info for your computer.
You may need to install libsmbios first
sudo apt-get install libsmbios-bin
