dell / biosdisk

Flashing Dell BIOS images on Linux systems

biosdisk

FreeDOS based BIOS updating utility for Dell machines.

This utility can be used to update the BIOS on a Dell machine running in legacy mode. If your machine is running in UEFI mode, it's recommended that you instead update using UEFI capsule as described at https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/19/sln171755/updating-the-dell-bios-in-linux-and-ubuntu-environments?lang=en

Installation

1. Install syslinux on your system
2. Install the package

# make install

Optimally if running on a Debian based distribution you can also generate packages using dpkg-buildpackage.

Usage

To find what options are available to use when executing the biosdisk script,

#biosdisk --help

Generating an ISO image

# biosdisk mkimage /path/to/exe

Installing an EXE update

# biosdisk install /path/to/exe

This will:

• load the EXE file into an image
• configure GRUB2 boot entry
• Set next boot flag to run the image
• Prompt for installation

Automatically installing without prompting

# biosdisk install -o "/nopause" /path/to/exe

Removing boot entries and old image

# biosdisk uninstall /path/to/exe

pxelinux

Booting the biosdisk-created BIOS flash image with PXELINUX

To set up GRUB to allow a user to boot the BIOS flash image via a PXELINUX PXE server, complete the following steps:

a. Copy the biosdisk-created BIOS flash image and the SYSLINUX memdisk
   file (usually found in /usr/lib/syslinux) to your PXELINUX PXE server
   directory (usually /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg). 
b. Edit the "default" file (usually /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default) to 
   add the following:

label BIOS Flash <version>
	kernel /pxelinux.cfg/memdisk iso
	append initrd=/pxelinux.cfg/<imagename>.iso

4. In order to restart the computer after the Bios upgrade, press Crtl-Alt-Del