From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Jan 13 1:49:24 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mcqueen.wolfsburg.de (pns.wobline.de [212.68.68.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8C3FA37B400 for ; Sun, 13 Jan 2002 01:49:20 -0800 (PST) Received: from colt.ncptiddische.net (ppp-197.wobline.de [212.68.69.208]) by mcqueen.wolfsburg.de (8.11.3/8.11.3/tw-20010821) with ESMTP id g0D9n8v14226; Sun, 13 Jan 2002 10:49:08 +0100 Received: from tisys.org (poison.ncptiddische.net [192.168.0.5]) by colt.ncptiddische.net (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g0D9oMX73456; Sun, 13 Jan 2002 10:50:23 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from nils@tisys.org) Received: (from nils@localhost) by tisys.org (8.11.6/8.11.6) id g0D9nTn28104; Sun, 13 Jan 2002 10:49:29 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from nils) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 10:49:29 +0100 From: Nils Holland To: Mike Meyer Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FIC on updating BIOS ;-) Message-ID: <20020113104929.A1712@tisys.org> Mail-Followup-To: Mike Meyer , freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG References: <20020113001000.A92296@tisys.org> <15424.53757.481922.381948@guru.mired.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <15424.53757.481922.381948@guru.mired.org>; from mwm-dated-1011313021.0822f6@mired.org on Sat, Jan 12, 2002 at 06:17:01PM -0600 X-Operating-System: FreeBSD poison.ncptiddische.net 4.5-RC FreeBSD 4.5-RC X-Machine-Uptime: 10:39AM up 21 mins, 2 users, load averages: 0.19, 0.06, 0.01 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Sat, Jan 12, 2002 at 06:17:01PM -0600, Mike Meyer stood up and spoke: > > I'd say it's good advice for most users: installing a new BIOS (or > whatever) may well break something that is currently working. Why risk > that unless there's a good chance it'll fix something that *isn't* > currently working? More importantly - at least as far as the vendor is > concerned - it probably causes a noticable drop in their support > calls. That's true, actually. I know a lot of people who are *always* after new BIOSes, probably because they think that they are cool if they always have the latest stuff (which makes no sense for the BIOS, however). Personally, I only update my BIOS in response to problems I'm having. Back when the 686B bug was a hot issue, I of course updated my BIOS as soon as a fixed version became available. Normally, I have a look at the BIOS websites of my board's vendors every now and then to see what's going on. If I see a problem addressed that I have personally seen, I'll update. If not, I don't, after all, there's not much use in doing so. However, what I found so "interesting" about FIC's warning was that they explicitly wrote "better download some software on some sharewaqre site or do something less dangerous". I somehow found the way that had written that funny. Epox, for example, has a not so funny warning, simply saying that a BIOS should only be updated if there is really a need to do so, and that one should know what one's doing before attempting an update. In contrast to this, the FIC statement seems to be targetted at all those "need-the-latest-stuff" kids out there, who probably don't know what they are doing, and therefore are really better of at a shareware site... Greetings Nils -- Nils Holland Ti Systems - FreeBSD in Tiddische, Germany http://www.tisys.org * nils@tisys.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message