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merge / skulls

pre-built coreboot images and documentation on how to flash them for Thinkpad Laptops
GNU General Public License v3.0
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Question about BIOS version #77

Closed Smeat closed 5 years ago

Smeat commented 5 years ago

Hi I just tried updating my EC. You write "In case you're not running the latest BIOS version, either[..]", which I interpreted as "do exactly one of those options". So I chose the second option and applied the battery patch. After updating, my EC is now Version 1.14, but my BIOS is still 1.13. Everything seems to be working fine, but x230_before_first_install.sh still complains, since it only checks for the BIOS version.

As I understand it I don't really need the newest BIOS, just the newest EC?

merge commented 5 years ago

Hi, thanks for your report! that's strange. My understanding was that with thinkpad-ec you would update the bios too. when did you do that. They seem to have the latest bios version 2.74: https://github.com/hamishcoleman/thinkpad-ec/commit/80a5dd882a894709df675b4ff961e4bbe8885362 and that's what we check.

That said, we could easily relax our checking in that script a bit. We probably sould only check for 2.7x or something because the EC firmware never changes.

Smeat commented 5 years ago

I did it today, so I was using the current master. Maybe I am just a special case though, since I did use a rather unusual setup. Unfortunately my device has a supervisor password with USB boot disabled (but BIOS flashing is enabled. This might be the cause though), so I had to chainload to the USB device, on which I had to use syslinux with memdisk. But it did flash the EC successfully and I can't remember any error message. It did even show the BIOS and EC version (2.74 and 1.14).

Looking at the readme they suggest updating with the official version first: "For best results, ensure you have updated your BIOS to a recent version before starting". Maybe a similiar message should be in your documentation as well.

Do you know, if the BIOS version itself even matters when flashing coreboot? I'd say no, but I am not quite sure if I understand the whole architecture.

merge commented 5 years ago

I did it today, so I was using the current master. Maybe I am just a special case though, since I did use a rather unusual setup. Unfortunately my device has a supervisor password with USB boot disabled (but BIOS flashing is enabled. This might be the cause though), so I had to chainload to the USB device, on which I had to use syslinux with memdisk. But it did flash the EC successfully and I can't remember any error message. It did even show the BIOS and EC version (2.74 and 1.14).

Looking at the readme they suggest updating with the official version first: "For best results, ensure you have updated your BIOS to a recent version before starting". Maybe a similiar message should be in your documentation as well.

or, easier, don't check for that very latest bios at all.

Do you know, if the BIOS version itself even matters when flashing coreboot? I'd say no, but I am not quite sure if I understand the whole architecture.

no it doesn't. and we should only check for the 1.14 EC version actually. Everything else should only be suggestions in the docs.