First stable release is now available for download

Sep 16, 2019 13:10 GMT  ·  By

Just two weeks after its initial unveiling, the GNOME Firmware utility has been officially released as part of the GNOME 3.34 desktop environment series.

Promising to make firmware updates easier to deploy, GNOME Firmware is a graphical application for power users that lets them check for new firmware for their devices, update or downgrade current firmware, as well as to install new firmware. GNOME Firmware is designed as an optional utility for GNOME users, as well as users of other desktop environments.

"GNOME Firmware is designed to be a not-installed-by-default power-user tool to investigate, upgrade, downgrade and re install firmware," said Richard Hughes in a blog post. "GNOME Software will continue to be used for updates as before. Vendor helpdesks can ask users to install GNOME Firmware rather than getting them to look at command line output."

The first release of GNOME Firmware will be capable to display all device metadata supported by the fwupd utility, let users install, reinstall, or downgrade firmware for supported hardware, unlock hardware like TPMs (Trusted Platform Modules), as well as to automatically enable the Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS) and refresh the metadata.

Now available in Flathub

GNOME Firmware is backed by the recently released fwupd 1.3.1 open-source daemon for managing the installation of firmware updates on Linux-based operating systems, a utility that's also maintained by Richard Hughes. fwupd 1.3.1 makes it easier to build GNOME Firmware as you only have to compile the libfwupd library to make the application work as expected.

However, users can install GNOME Firmware right now from the Flathub repository if they want to take it for a test drive. The installation is easy and it only takes a few seconds. Once installed, you'll be able to see all (or most of) your hardware and updated the firmware if needed or if new builds are available from supported vendors.

In time, GNOME Firmware will be included by default in the GNOME desktop environment, but for now it needs a much polished user interface and probably a few more features to make it complete. Of course, it also needs translations, so anyone who can help the developers is welcome to contribute. More details about GNOME Firmware are available on GitLab.

GNOME Firmware
GNOME Firmware

GNOME Firmware (2 Images)

GNOME Firmware
GNOME Firmware
Open gallery