Comment 9 for bug 1072082

Christopher M. Penalver, this is an update on the BIOS issue. Unfortunately, it is bad news.

I was contacted yesterday by email from Dell support to phone them, which I did this morning. I spent 2 hours on the phone describing the issue and the problems regarding flashing the new BIOS. Basically the situation is that Ubuntu (and all other Linux distros?) have no official support from Dell. I have asked that the issue be escalated to someone in Dell who can make a response, but I am not holding my breath.

I confirm what I wrote earlier, none of the methods involving FreeDOS (bootable USB, CD-ROM, or mount from Grub) enable the executable to be successfully booted to the menu. In addition, none of the methods involving Dell Linux tools appear to be current, either because the software scripts have been obsoleted, or because the repositories for the BIOS upgrades have not been maintained for an extended period of time (at least 18 months).

At the present time, it is therefore not possible for me to upgrade my BIOS by any of the published methods, because I do not have a Windows partition on my hard drive, and I do not have a copy of Windows that I can install. There is no currently-published method of doing this from Linux that will work for my computer.

If you (or anyone else reading this) has any suggestions I will be pleased to hear them. I am considering options other than FreeDOS for making a bootable USB/CD image, but this will have to be done on a borrowed Windows machine.