system76 / laptop-suggestions

Repo to collect laptop design suggestions and feedback as issues.
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Full component Firmware updates #37

Open ThoreauHenry opened 4 years ago

ThoreauHenry commented 4 years ago

Why/User Benefit/User Problem

As it stands now, firmware is updateable for the bios and thunderbolt EC- if you are lucky. Hard drives, ssd's, dvd-roms, TPM type 1 and 2, touchpad EC's of every variety, IMEI(if enabled), and the like are ignored. That creates entropy over time. Unexplained errors. And makes Linux a second class citizen compared to any other OS(Mac/Windows).

This is already done on servers via a bootable self-contained and hardware detecting iso. And consumer win devices do it piecemeal, but they can do it. We can't. This is a problem.

Description of the feature

Depending on how fancy/efficient you want to get, create a secure UEFI firmware repo and/or a bootable iso, which could technically also be mounted from a uefi repo to update all firmware components.

No consumer devices can do this now. This would be a BFD. As it stands now, no Dell or you or lenovo has this feature. The best they can do is LVFS for the bios rom and ignore the rest.

If I'm wishing on a star, this is what I'd wish for. No half-ass gimped hardware simply because you didn't dual boot.