BIOS update via USB fob using KNOPPIX?

Fri Oct 1 11:23:31 PDT 2010

While I admit that I prefer to use FreeBSD for a computing environment,
I'll willingly grant that KNOPPIX is a very useful set of tools.

Thanks to a colleague, I have replaced my "Frankenlaptop".  The new machine
is ... well, pretty amazing:

* It has a screen with a resolution of 1920x1200.
* It has enough computing resources to build FreeeBSD head (while
  running stable/8) in about 2 hours, from an empty /usr/obj.
* Each set of mouse buttons is composed of 3 buttons, and the middle one
  is detected by X.org as "button 2".
* It has a metal (vs. plastic) shell.
* Dell actually supports (some version of) Linux on the thing.

However, it is running a down-level BIOS -- A19, vs. the current A23.

And upgrading the BIOS on my work desktop resolved a somewhat-similar
issue: the machine would sometimes hang on boot during the kernel
probes.

There are some notable differences, but I suspect that upgrading the
BIOS would be a Good Thing.

I'm wondering if it might be feasible to update the BIOS by placing the
Linux version of the BIOS updater on (say) a USB flash drive, booting
the laptop from a KNOPPIX cd, and trying to execute the BIOS updater
from that environment...?

I think the flavor of Linux Dell supports is Red Hat.  And I'm pretty
clueless about potential modes of failure -- and I'd really prefer to
avoid them, whatever they may be!

If the above is not feasible or too risky, what other alternatives might
I have, given that I do not have Microsoft media (nor do I know how to
actually do anything intentional with such things).

Thanks!

Peace,
david
-- 
David H. Wolfskill				david at catwhisker.org
Depriving a girl or boy of an opportunity for education is evil.

See http://www.catwhisker.org/~david/publickey.gpg for my public key.
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