I'm trying to make custom firmware archives for hardware that I use, but the docs are a bit confusing in some places.
Can you open up a discussion on the fwupd GitHub project please, and maybe we can make things better.
Will do.
LVFS – Linux Vendor Firmware Service
21–30 of 67 posts
Re: LVFS – Linux Vendor Firmware Service
#22This is honestly a gigantic ad for Dell and Lenovo. Looking at the vendor list substantially changed my opinion on Dell in a matter of minutes.
Re: LVFS – Linux Vendor Firmware Service
#23Don't know much about it yet, and it is undoubtedly is a useful service. However looking at that page boasting telemetry and noticing an always running fwupd process running here as root it looks like this is probably leaking information thru its comm channel.
Does anyone know why this is running 24/7? I don't expect my firmware to be changing minute to minute. I need to get OpenSnitch running to keep an eye on these things, heard it was making it into Debian and hopefully derivatives soon.
Re: LVFS – Linux Vendor Firmware Service
#24Don't know much about it yet, and it is undoubtedly is a useful service. However looking at that page boasting telemetry and noticing an always running fwupd process running here as root it looks like this is probably leaking information thru its comm channel. Does anyone know why this is running 24/7? I don't expect my firmware to be changing minute to minute. I need to get OpenSnitch running to keep an eye on these…
> this is probably leaking information thru its comm channel
It's really not. The fwupd process doesn't have any internet access at all -- all communication is done through a socket over DBus. All the telemetry is done with the user explicitly opting in -- we even show the JSON in the terminal that is going to be sent.
> Does anyone know why this is running 24/7
We auto-quit on idle or for low memory conditions -- unless you have hardware that's expensive (either in terms of power, or time) like thunderbolt and synaptics MST. The resident RSS is tiny as we mmap all the data files which can be paged out by the kernel -- we can even run fwupd on the tiny BMC processor as well. I'd be interested in what OpenSnitch says, but the D-Bus interface is the only way in and out. Interesting, the daemon doesn't actually do any policy actions itself; all actions have to be initiated by the front end -- which includes downloading new firmware metadata.
Re: LVFS – Linux Vendor Firmware Service
#25This is honestly a gigantic ad for Dell and Lenovo. Looking at the vendor list substantially changed my opinion on Dell in a matter of minutes.
Dell has a pretty good record for providing firmware updates without too much hassle. Although it does seem like they ship product with.. a lot of problems.
We bought a 10gbit enabled PowerConnect switch only to learn that the “10gbit” part didn’t actually work until they released a new firmware.
Re: LVFS – Linux Vendor Firmware Service
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the cool things about Fedora or Arch is we get to see these changes in their infancy before most are aware. This, pipewire, etc. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/SystemFirmwareUpdates
I mean... any distribution is like that, no? Pipewire for example has been in Debian since two releases ago. You would probably not to run it on those releases unless you were building your own up-to-date bug-fixed packages from a custom repo, but that is not out of the question especially with CI/CD being what it is nowadays.
Was it?
> Using as a substitute for PulseAudio/JACK/ALSA
> Debian 11
> As per Simon McVittie, "This is not a supported scenario for Debian 11, and is considered experimental."
(Debian Wiki, PipeWire)
In Fedora, it is default since Fedora 35 (released in 2021/11).
Re: LVFS – Linux Vendor Firmware Service
#27Amazing project! It's incredibly well engineered, imo.
It's really nice to read the author's blogposts describing how he forces hardware vendors to get their shit together and either use a standardized update mechanism or create a thoroughly tested open source plugin.
I remember the first time I got a Dell laptop and put Ubuntu on it, GNOME Software immediately prompted me to install a firmware update. I was so amazed by this. It really felt like Ubuntu was finally a first-class citizen. I'm still completely sold on Dell because of this experience. Sadly they still don't upload all the firmware for all machines. I have no idea why though..
Re: LVFS – Linux Vendor Firmware Service
#28This is honestly a gigantic ad for Dell and Lenovo. Looking at the vendor list substantially changed my opinion on Dell in a matter of minutes.
I just wrote in a different comment that this completely sold me on Dell.
I got a Dell laptop from work with Windows on it. Installed Ubuntu and it immediately prompted me to update the firmware. What an amazing experience!
I always recommend Dell to people looking for a Linux laptop. Although I hear Lenovo started to get their shit together too in the last few years.
Re: LVFS – Linux Vendor Firmware Service
#29Don't know much about it yet, and it is undoubtedly is a useful service. However looking at that page boasting telemetry and noticing an always running fwupd process running here as root it looks like this is probably leaking information thru its comm channel. Does anyone know why this is running 24/7? I don't expect my firmware to be changing minute to minute. I need to get OpenSnitch running to keep an eye on these…
Oh no "leaking telemetry". Heavens.
I think what yesterday's SSD discussion revealed is that an open database of "leaked" SMART data would be of immense value to users and should have happened years ago. It sucks that privacy derangement vetoes the development of things of real value.
Re: LVFS – Linux Vendor Firmware Service
#30As mentioned, I did not know this exists either, but I wonder what they consider a "Major Linux Distro" ? > This site is used by all major Linux distributions to provide metadata for clients such as fwupdmgr and GNOME Software. Based upon that statement and the fact fwupdmgr does not come with Slackware, maybe major equates to GNOME Based ? But with some extra work, looks like this could be useful for non-GNOME distr…
"Major" = RHEL, Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, perhaps also Arch. Slackware is niche, sorry.
Arch is the new “big” distro among Linux gamers. It seems to be taking market share from Ubuntu.
And yes, fwupdmgr works fine on Arch too.