Creating Bootable FreeDOS USB – openSUSE Linux
I’ve been reading a story about the Dell Latitude E6500 BIOS and possible over throttling during normal operating conditions, and decided to upgrade my BIOS. Although this task for windows users is pretty straight forward (you download the .EXE binary, and run it). However, with Linux we don’t run the .EXE binary natively. air duct cleaning . So our option is to create a FreeDOS Bootable USB, to boot to and install the required BIOS update. ssa.org . ftd . First download the update for your computer. Do the following: mkdir -p /tmp/fs-rootDownload to tmp and tmp/fs-root: wget --directory-prefix=/tmp/fs-root http://www.benkevan.com/upload/freedosboot/command.comwget --directory-prefix=/tmp/fs-root http://www.benkevan.com/upload/freedosboot/kernel.syswget --directory-prefix=/tmp http://www.benkevan.com/upload/freedosboot/fat12.binwget --directory-prefix=/tmp http://www.benkevan.com/upload/freedosboot/fat16.binwget --directory-prefix=/tmp http://www.benkevan.com/upload/freedosboot/fat32lba.binThese were grabbed from www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.0/pkgs/ required packages (kernel.zip, commandx.zip unstablx.zip)Install makefakeboot if you don't have it: sudo zypper in makebootfatsudo dd if=/dev/ of=/tmp/mbr.bin bs=512 count=1Note: In my case /dev/sda was my primary drivecd /tmpsudo makebootfat -o /dev/ -E 255 -1 fat12.bin -2 fat16.bin -3 fat32lba.bin -m mbr.bin /tmp/fs-rootNow since I needed to update my BIOS, I then copied the bios.exe over to the thumb drive, rebooted my machine and booted to the USB stick (note, your have to verify your BIOS supports booting to USB before this works for you).
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...
Loading ...
[...] post: Creating Bootable FreeDOS USB – openSUSE Linux | Ben Kevan's Blog By admin | category: linux | tags: been-reading, btrfs, code-which, dell, during-normal, [...]
[...] View post: Creating Bootable FreeDOS USB – openSUSE Linux | Ben Kevan's Blog [...]
Have you tried FUK?
http://lizards.opensuse.org/2008/06/16/firmwareupdatekit/
Afaik it’s in the main oss repo
I’m quite sure Dell provides BIOS updating tools for linux (http://linux.dell.com/projects.shtml), so I guess your solution is a bit of an overkill
Well, if you have a Dell computer, its much simpler. Just download the BIOSdisk rpm from linux.dell.com, execute “biosdisk –install “, and select the right entry from your grub menu on next reboot. Works even if booting from usb is not supported.
[...] in the week and it is quite major. Heise covered it and there have been many other technical writings about OpenSUSE, some of which relate to new packages that are updated. OpenSUSE infrastructure [...]
Nice! Thanks for sharing.
Seldom am I satisfied with the quality of the online content I read today. This happens to be just the material I like to read because it makes me think.
It’s clear that you really know this subject matter well. After reading other articles of this type, I was discouraged. I will walk away from your article with more knowledge.
Thank you for writing this information. This is great writing from an obviously knowledgeable person. I found your points valid, interesting and easy to digest.
It’s obvious that the writer of this article completely knows the subject. You have posed some very interesting, and thought-provoking ideas. I am convinced that this article is the best I’ve read on this topic.