[ltp] Upgrading BIOS in Linux?

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Mon, 16 Jul 2007, Evgeni Golov wrote:
> this question is mainly to our hardware-hackers HMH and Shem, but I
> think it could interest everyone.

Heh. No, I am not a thinkpad hardware hacker...

> Unfortunately this does NOT work on my Thinkpads (Z61m and X31), so I
> would like to know, if someone is able to use flashrom in his TP, and
> if nobody, would it be possible to hack flashrom to support TPs.

It is often dangerous to mess with laptops this way.  Especially thinkpads.
The flash procedure likely is able to update the vital product data eeprom,
for example, and you don't want that one to get screwed.  If you want to
try, be my guest, but I definately don't recommend it.

IMHO it is best to burn a CD image and flash the bios using IBM's tools.  It
is not like you'll need to do it more than once an year for your X31 (if at
all), and the Z61m is not likely to receive many firmware updates in the
future anymore, either.

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh