who the fuck think it's a good idea to push bios update via windows update?, it can't even get video driver update right. Before you flaming me for using microslop windows this is my brother laptop not mine

Dell thinks it’s ok. Ultimately they are the ones who decides what OE-specific software gets pushed via Windows Update.

Luckily this time it didn't fry the bios chip, but I wasted 2 hours fucking around and waiting for dell diagnostic tool to complete

If your network or sound stops working after an update, you're either Doing It Wrong or you just have trash hardware.

Me too l, I only used Linux for 2 years and I never had any problems with driver after update or any problems in general really.

Yeah sometimes maybe some laptop it will hardbrick your bios chip, require programer to reflash or replace the chip

Yeah fuck them both then, dell think it's a good idea and microslop also think it's a good and allowed dell to do it

I don't think I had a linux distro break audio/video/network after an update in 10+ years. Maybe I've just been lucky? That said I've had countless issues with work machines after Microsoft updates

Image related?

Sometimes both. I recently started using an old Macbook with Void, which they have notorious broadcom-wl, so I searched a lot and a got a micro network adapter. It was actually quite hard to find with a working driver because Realtek. Anyway this one I found seemed to had a dkms driver on Void repo, so I went with that.

The dkms driver gives bunch of errors for some reason. I didn't have time to debug it and just compiled from Github. Naturally I have to compile it every kernel update. I probably can add a hook for it but haven't done that yet because lazy.

Edit: Added a kernel hook. It's not harder than writing this comment. :)

i've had to deal with two bricked dell all-in-one systems due to failed automatic bios updates. to their credit, they did repair those (shipping both ways, motherboard replacements) at no cost despite being out of warranty. but it did take some time for them to reach that resolution--both users had already replaced the systems with something else by the time they got word of the repairs being covered. that was years ago (7-8? maybe). the culprit then was dell's own update software, not windows update.

i still cringe whenever i see a bios update screen that i didn't initiate myself. at least my own systems are mostly way too old to have bios updates pushed out for them by microsoft or lvfs.

Are the people in your head?

Yes

It semi reliably kills pipewire and some sometimes USB drives won't mount after a kernel update if I don't restart.

Hasn't happened in a little while though

It's also happening in Linux through fwupd.

To everyone asking who linux breaks for: me. My desktop? Wont wake from sleep half the time (motherboard issue, fuck you ASRock), I have a laptop that wont load its wifi drivers unless you sacrifice 12 children too it(it legit just had wonky drivers being an older intel wifi chip), audio and video issues out the ass on those old dell office pcs

Just because you won the hardware lottery doesnt mean wonky devices dont still exist. And sometimes people shop by price of hardware not its linux compatibility

sometimes USB drives won’t mount after a kernel update if I don’t restart.

Well yes, you've removed the running kernel from disk. It's not going to be able to load any drivers that weren't already loaded.

Is mainstream distros shipped it by default? cuz I never heard or have it installed

unless you a running a livepatch setup, you should always reboot after a kernel update.

or an nvidia driver update, but that's an exception.

ubuntu ships it by default iirc. it's pretty mainstream alright.

Damn

It is a good idea. Firmware updates can improve stability and performance. Just because it failed this time doesnt mean that all the other times it silently worked were also bad ideas.

It's funny, cause i haven't had this happen on linux, but i've had both audio and network issues on windows 11

Where problem? I need a red circle.

In fairness, you have to specifically run that, so you know you are doing a firmware update and that you should be careful.

I know I'll get downvoted for this, but what's the problem?

I see a screenshot of Dell diagnostics running fine

Dell BIOS updates come with a checksum to prevent corruption issues, whether it's installed via Dell's software, Microsoft Updates or Linux fwupd... I don't think I've had a corruption in ~20 years of using Dell equipment.

I have seen settings reset to defaults before - which was mentioned in the release notes...

Any mainstream Linux distro can update your firmware out of the box as well. I have never run into an issue with Fedora updating mine. Kinda think of it, I don’t really use Windows much anymore but I don’t recall any issues with Windows updating firmware either. Maybe I have been lucky.

Fedora also does iirc? I remember seeing "firmware update" on gnome software

Yeah I get bios updates through fedora on my framework

Yeah I kinda got lucky this time

I had windows update recently, but apparently the update failed at some point.... Which windows decided to ignore all my other backups and go with a 3 year old on, deleting 3 years of my data overnight.

Fuck Microsoft, I'll never wander back to Windows, I've had some issues with getting Linux going for 1 or two things, beyond that it has been a night and day difference. My system just works and my shit hasn't disappeared (well, 1 failed install, but I don't speak of that 🤪).

Linux is the only path I see forward anymore

I'm not I just run 128 GB RAM in 4 dimms on Ryzen7000 which is tricky to get running at a reasonable speed and doesn't always restart right so I'm reticent to restart

I've had it happen multiple times because of a package that made the Windows Hello (camera) work on Debian, it always crashed my KDE after an update. Not using that anymore and haven't had any issue since.

The worst part about Windows Update is when it functions as intended. They're going to re-install Edge, turn OneDrive back on, and shove Copilot into Explorer, Notepad, and Paint.

This is all for your security.

The image is of Dell SupportAssist, which is part of the UEFI/BIOS environment. I wouldn’t expect you to be able to boot into it if it were corrupt.

The running kernel is not removed. Most (if not all?) distros will keep multiple previous kernels for fallback purposes. Some relatively recent projects will wait for system calls to complete and redirect new ones to the updated equivalent (see Live Kernel Patching).
The reason some things stop working is because the kernel modules directory is replaced. The running (old) kernel tries to access a module for a newer version and says nope.

Arch Linux has the package kernel-modules-hook which backs up the old modules and points the old kernel to them while it's running. I'm not sure why it's not installed by default.

It does, but anecdotally it doesn't seem super reliable. Did a full system update without knowing it was a thing and only found out when it went into BIOS and immediately said "update failed". Luckily seemed like just a checksum or some other sanity check failing, but I'm guessing I got the wrong binary for my hardware.

I'm living on the edge with Archlinux^[1]^ and use the AUR. Updating daily. I'm living every day as if it was my last on earth.

[1] Archlinux=EndeavourOS

It can get run automatically by things like Gnome Software.

Linux also pushes BIOS updates via fwupd, just for your information.

User is just lonely, this has nothing to do with anything they have experienced, and the screenshot is just a regular diagnostic

Unfortunately yeah, these things still happen with Linux. I love linux, and I don't use Windows, but all the "Linux never does anything wrong", or "works on my machine, it must be a skill issue" people don't realize how much that prevents people from moving over.

Linux is a looooooot better than it used to be, but pretending that problems don't exist, is how Linux, and the culture surrounding it, got such a bad reputaion for such a long time.

Ah. I don't use graphical software managers so have no idea that they did that.

if you're on arch, where i know the usb thing happens out of the box, there's a pacman hook you can install to fix it. i can't remember what its called but you should be able to fix it

I feel your pain.

I now keep my data backup separate to the OS backups, so a rollback might time travel me back 3 years, but my data's safe... elsewhere...

(Sure. I might still have to do a restore...)

I feel like "everything breaks on linux" was created by Microsoft to sell windows lol

I'm on an arch derivative (endeavouros).

Thanks I'll take a look around. It seems to happen just infrequently enough that I've never gone out of my way to fix it.

The pipewire thing just needs a restart of pipewire which isn't a huge problem.

I kind of think it's just reputational hangover. Everyone remembers how bad Windows Vista was because Windows XP had been so great, however Microsoft came along with Windows 7 and improved the windows reputation.
In the Linux world people aren't really doing big promos which garner a lot of media attention regarding new kernel versions or new DE's. Ubuntu is really the closest this ever comes but I'm sure if there was someone being a bit more like "Arch 2028! Our most stable version yet!" and hyped it all up and did a bunch of promos the reputation would shift more.

that sounds like a drag. have you tried a firmware update?

those usually help with getting ram to play nice.