this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2024
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submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

How to update BIOS on a system that only use Linux as OS.

Asking this because some clowns at Acer decided that they will only provide BIOS updates through Windows Update.

Edit: I'm not talking about installing the BIOS file. They don't even provide BIOS file in the first place.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I had an Acer laptop once. I had Ubuntu on it. I had problems with random crashing after a few minutes, I ran memtest, it took a few hours for a full test and came back with a whole slew of faults. I sent it to Acer under warranty and they told me that Linux was the problem and I should leave windows on it.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

I called the "technical" support regarding this issue. And they said they'll only support Windows.

Making your entire hardware reliant on particular proprietary software like Windows is just stupid.

Never buying Acer again.

At this point, I don't even know which vendor to buy, when everybody is shit.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Tuxedo, Framework, Slimbook, System76, Starlabs are Linux-first vendors with an excellent track record.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago

3mdeb, Novacustom, Pine64

Minisforum is also said to work well.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I know and Framework is just mouth watering. And Chad76 created their own distro and DE.

it's just sad that they are not selling on my country.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

Framework uses proprietary BIOS. They ditched coreboot, which is pretty bad.

Afaik they were also a lot behind on updates.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Any of these European or (even better) UK based..?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Yes. Tuxedo is German, Slimbook Spanish, Starlabs British, NovaCustom Dutch.... Framework is US/Taiwanese but sells within select EU countries and the UK. AFAIK S76 is US/Canada only.

Edit: most of these actually ship worldwide but won't collect VAT and probably won't honor warranty claims outside their territory.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

Have a look at Starlabs. You can choose coreboot

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago (1 children)

reminder to myself to remove the ssd next time i need warranty repair

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

A 128 or 256 GB SSD or NVME drive costs £10 to £15 on eBay used. I would buy one and put Windows on it when sending back for warranty repair. OP should actually just do this for the BIOS update and then swap out the SSD back to the Linux one after.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago

Had something similar with ASUS…never again