Comments on: Upgrade / Downgrade your Dell Bios On Ubuntu

By: Kakel

Kakel — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 19:48:00 +0000

Hi, have you recently tried this?
The command apt-get install libsmbios-bin fails because it cannot locate the package!!
Any ideas?

By: Celso

Celso — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 19:31:32 +0000

did you find an solution for this?

By: PGlynn

PGlynn — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:37:07 +0000

Hey there, i’m having the same struct issue with python. i can’t locate the py file. could you post on how to fix the file?

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:14:28 +0000

Hi There, I can’t seem to find my bios in the dell’s list (http://linux.dell.com/repo/firmware/bios-hdrs). Do you know how often Dell updates this list? or do you know where else I can find my bios? Here’s my info:

Libsmbios version: 2.2.13
Product Name: Vostro 1320
Vendor: Dell Inc.
BIOS Version: A02
System ID: 0x02BB

Thank you very much.

By: Bigbrovar

Bigbrovar — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:30:02 +0000

sorry mate, maybe dell took it down?

By: the green knight

the green knight — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:28:06 +0000

I am trying to downgrade from A05 to 00 so i can use a new battery. i am using ubuntu 9.04 and my system ID is 0x02B0 but I cannot find a matching directory on the list of firmware. any ideas?

By: Bigbrovar

Bigbrovar — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 09:25:27 +0000

seems to be a python problem. i did some googling of and i found this http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/firmware-tools-devel/2009-March/000427.html it would seems adding import struct to this file /usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/libsmbios_c/rbu_hdr.py solves the problem. remember to backup first before you do this .. please let me know if you are still confused on how to do this and i will get back to you on a more detailed guide. good luck

By: Ron

Ron — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 08:54:12 +0000

It will not work
If I run dellBiosUpdate -u -f ./bios.hdr
Error Msg:
Performing BIOS update…
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/sbin/dellBiosUpdate”, line 185, in
sys.exit( main() )
File “/usr/sbin/dellBiosUpdate”, line 153, in main
exit_code = updateBios(HdrFile(options.hdr), options)
File “”, line 3, in updateBios
File “/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/libsmbios_c/trace_decorator.py”, line 98, in trace
result = func(*args, **kw)
File “/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/libsmbios_c/rbu_update.py”, line 96, in updateBios
raise InappropriateHDRFile( _(“The system bios version (%s) is the same as or newer than the .HDR file (%s).”) % (ver, hdrfile.biosVersion()) )
libsmbios_c.rbu_update.InappropriateHDRFile: The system bios version (A12) is the same as or newer than the .HDR file (A05).
==========================================
If I run dellBiosUpdate –override_bios_version -u -f ./bios.hdr
Usage: smbios-rbu-bios-update

dellBiosUpdate: error: no such option: –override_bios_version

Somebody please help

By: CJ

CJ — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:14:26 +0000

Awesome! Thanks for this info…very very helpful and worked perfectly!

By: anon

anon — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 03:25:13 +0000

Thank you very much for this guide. It works nicely for Debian as well.

Much appreciated.