Artix Linux Forum

Fwupd with Runit

24 February 2023, 22:26:20

Hi,

I have some suspicion, that the Intel drivers  on my  laptop may cause LCD burn -in. I currently have:

6.1.12-artix1-1 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC
local/intel-media-driver 23.1.0-1
local/libva-intel-driver 2.4.1-2
local/xf86-video-intel 1:2.99.917+923+gb74b67f0-1 (xorg-drivers)

I needed to use live once due to strict configuration I have (Live from 20.02.2023 KDE + runit), which caused heavy IPS LCD imprint immediately. On installed version I had it once, but not sure about now. I used W+R+G+B colors PNGs in slideshow to clear it up.

Just to be sure everything is in order, I need to do FWUPD on runit, but I DO NOT WANT TO BRICK my laptop. I have:

$ fwupdmgr update:
Devices with no available firmware updates:
 • "xxx" SSD
 • System Firmware
Devices with the latest available firmware version:
 • UEFI dbx

So I see I can't directly update SSD firmware via Fwupd (If I could, what would happen?: new device ID and stuck at boot?, or data loss?). I can see that I have UEFI update and would like to do it. What would be the correct procedure STEP BY STEP in order NOT TO BRICK the laptop? Any help would be appreciated (of course there's no systemd fwupd service running).

Re: Fwupd with Runit

Reply #1 – 24 February 2023, 22:52:24

On very critical hardware related tasks I would advise using a more tried and tested init (all distros implementing fwupd for standard operations that I've seen use OpenRC), a different distro (Alpine, Debian/Devuan), or a different environment (DOS or EFI Shell).

I would suggest you not try with this particular configuration.

Re: Fwupd with Runit

Reply #2 – 24 February 2023, 23:26:17

So a new distro, like daily Ubuntu (or daily LTS) would have to be installed on SSD with default (non custom) partitioning setup or Fedora (was always lvm). This would erase/destroy my current long time maintained Artix. If I used partclone from clonezilla, the restored image would fail (clonezilla is broken on linux- see my other post).

I am in no way happy to recreate my current setup from scratch. No way! But this LCD burn-in bothers me. New UEFI may contain some hardware fixes like more strict power supply/timings to LCD (or whatever stability issues, just exactly like all Debian/Gentoo/Fedora/Arch updates, UEFI is just a software- just like any other so it may contain some critical fixes and for sure this ver. I have is crap...).

And what will happen if I externally updated (how?) SSD firmware (as far as I remember its a very good quality MLC with 4-core controller, works great, but as any other software there might be some bugs and/or improved trimming, management, mutlithreading for those four cores, etc., even xfsprogs is constantly updated...). So what would happen? No boot? New UUID? Data/Aritx install loss?

Re: Fwupd with Runit

Reply #3 – 25 February 2023, 08:36:52

Have you checked your laptop manufacturer website to see if there are any firmware updates? Fwupd is stating there are no updates.  It is possible to install firmware updates from a live usb environment if needed.

Best regards.