[CLUE-Tech] flashing BIOS from within Linux?

[Jim Ockers]

Howdy,

Has anyone on this list ever flashed a motherboard BIOS to
a new BIOS image while running Linux as the base OS?

If so, what did you use?  I've seen a 'qnxflash' utility that
was used by Netpliance to load the flash BIOS on their i-opener
while running QNX.  It worked fine when I tried it.  I've 
never seen anything like that for Linux.

Dosemu, wine, VMware, etc. all count - but I personally think
it's unlikely that you could flash the BIOS using a flash
program under any of those.

It seems silly to have to boot DOS just to flash the BIOS.  I
know the MTD support is coming along nicely and is starting
to support many different flash chips - has anyone used that?

I'm not sure how the LinuxBIOS people actually write their
BIOS images to the flash; I've subscribed to the 
linuxbios at clustermatic.org mailing list for quite some time,
but I haven't osmosed the procedure yet.

Thanks,
Jim

PS We have an embedded industrial computer system that runs 
Linux, and it's a real pain to have to open up the (very secure) 
housing and attach a floppy disk drive data & power cables.  
Hot-glued power connectors and a several wires that have to be
wrestled aside to expose the floppy disk header make it fun!

Now imagine doing that on 1000 systems.  I'd like to be able to 
ssh in and flash the BIOS, since that's all software and can 
be automated.

-- 
Jim Ockers, P.Eng. (ockers at ockers.net)
Contact info: please see http://www.ockers.net/