Dell Latitude 7400 System BIOS 1.7.4

Dell released a new BIOS firmware version 1.7.4 for the Latitude 7300 and 7400 on May 22, 2020. This release is again marked Urgent and contains the following fixes and enhancements: Fixes: Firmware updated to address CVE-2020-5363 Enhancements: Updated the Embedded Controller Engine Firmware This version 1.7.4 is already available on Fedora 32 via fwupdmgr tool. [root@matht436 ~]# fwupdmgr refresh Fetching signature https://cdn.fwupd.org/downloads/firmware.xml.gz.jcat Downloading… [***************************************] Fetching metadata https://cdn.fwupd.org/downloads/firmware-00558-stable.xml.gz Downloading… [***************************************] Successfully downloaded new metadata: 1 local device supported [root@matht436 ~]# fwupdmgr update • Thunderbolt Controller has no available firmware updates • SSDPEKKF512G8 NVMe INTEL 512GB has no available firmware updates Upgrade available for System Firmware from 1....

June 8, 2020 · 1 min · 198 words · kenno

BIOS Firmware for ThinkPad P1 Gen1 1.30

Lenovo just released an updated BIOS firmware version 1.30 for ThinkPad P1 Gen1 on June 3rd. The changes in this v1.30 release are: CHANGES IN THIS RELEASE Version 1.30 [Important updates] - Update includes a security fix. - Address CVE-2020-0529, (https://cve.mitre.org//cgi-bin//cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2020-0529) - Address CVE-2020-0528, (https://cve.mitre.org//cgi-bin//cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2020-0528) [New functions or enhancements] - Updated the Diagnostics module to version 04.12.001. [Problem fixes] - Fixed an issue where USB keyboard connected via Thunderbolt WS Dock might not be used at BIOS POST....

June 8, 2020 · 3 min · 613 words · kenno

Create Disk Partition With GNU Parted

My favourite tool to create disk partitions on Linux is c[fg]disk. cfdisk used to create MBR based partition, and cgdisk is for GPT one. Today, I want to learn to use another tool called GNU Parted. After plugging an external disk, we can use udiskctl command to identify the disk device. # udisksctl status MODEL REVISION SERIAL DEVICE -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB EMT01B6Q S21MNXAG919308T sda ST2000DM001-1ER164 HP51 Z4Z46TMA sdb ST2000DM001-1ER164 HP51 Z4Z46W3E sdc Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB EMT01B6Q S21MNXAG919312Y sdd Samsung SSD 840 EVO 250G 0309 533144424E4541443837343335324120 sde The last Samsung SSD 840 (/dev/sde) is the one that I’m going to work with....

May 20, 2020 · 2 min · 419 words · kenno

BIOS Firmware for ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 6 1.48

On May 15, Lenovo released a new BIOS firmware for ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 6. The latest of the version of the firmware is 1.48. (There previous version 1.47 was withdrawn for some unknown reason.) Changes in this releases: CHANGES IN THIS RELEASE Version 1.48 [Important updates] - Update includes a security fix. [New functions or enhancements] - Updated the Diagnostics module to version 04.12.001. [Problem fixes] - Fixed an issue where Force PXE boot by Intel AMT does not work....

May 16, 2020 · 3 min · 469 words · kenno

BIOS Firmware for Thinkpad P1 Gen1 1.29

It’s almost exactly one month from the last time Lenovo released (v1.28 of ) the BIOS firmware for ThinkPad P1 Gen 1. Apparently, v1.28 firmware has been marked “Withdrawn” according to this n2eul21w.txt. The changes in this release v1.29 is: CHANGES IN THIS RELEASE Version 1.29 [Important updates] - Addresses CVE-2019-0154 (https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2019-0154) Refer to Lenovo's Security Advisory page for additional information about LEN-27714 "Multi-vendor BIOS Security Vulnerabilities". (https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product_security/LEN-27714) [New functions or enhancements] - Updated the CPU microcode....

May 16, 2020 · 2 min · 340 words · kenno

Create Folder Recursively With Powershell

Let’s say I want to create the following directories: C:/Program Files/MiKTeX 2.9/tex/latex/math using PowerShell because, as you may guess it, it’s a Windows directory structure. Here’s the command to do that: PS C:\> New-Item -Type Directory -Path "C:/Program Files/MiKTeX 2.9/tex/latex/math" The command seems simple enough. So why did I create this post? Well, guess what? I have to Google this out for the 3rd time this month. From now, if I need to look it up again, I can just go to https://blog....

May 14, 2020 · 1 min · 91 words · kenno

Remove Kernels on Fedora

I’m still running Fedora 31 on my main desktop though Fedora 32 beta has been out for a while. The only reason that stops me from jumping to F32 now is because ZFS 0.8.3 is not compatible with the kernel 5.6.* on F32. Rumor has it, ZFS 0.8.4 will support kernel 5.6. Tonight, while doing the system update with sudo dnf update -y on F31 desktop, I noticed that the kernel for F31 is now kernel-5....

April 26, 2020 · 2 min · 217 words · kenno

Delete a Local User Account With PowerShell

I need to delete a user from the PowerShell terminal and I don’t know how to do it. Well, fear no more, let’s have a quick read on Remove-LocalUser on how to do this. The command to delete the user is Remove-LocaUser. Remove-LocalUser [-InputObject] <LocalUser[]> [-WhatIf] [-Confirm] [<CommonParameters>] Remove-LocalUser [-Name] <String[]> [-WhatIf] [-Confirm] [<CommonParameters>] Remove-LocalUser [-SID] <SecurityIdentifier[]> [-WhatIf] [-Confirm] [<CommonParameters>] Here is an example of deleting a local user called simba....

April 22, 2020 · 1 min · 132 words · kenno

Getting rid of old initrd files on Ubuntu

Occasionally I see some of our Ubuntu machines having /boot partition filled up by the initrd files generated from old kernels which no longer were no longer installed on the machines. root@matht232:/boot# uname -a Linux matht232 5.3.0-40-generic #32~18.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Mon Feb 3 14:05:59 UTC 2020 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux root@matht232:/boot# dpkg -l linux-image-\* | grep ^ii ii linux-image-5.3.0-40-generic 5.3.0-40.32~18.04.1 amd64 Signed kernel image generic ii linux-image-generic-hwe-18.04-edge 5.3.0.46.102 amd64 Generic Linux kernel image root@matht232:/boot# ls -1 /boot config-5....

April 21, 2020 · 2 min · 252 words · kenno

New System BIOS for Dell Latitude 7400 1.7.3

Dell just released a new system BIOS version 1.7.3 on April 8 for Dell Latitude 7400. This release is marked as Urgent, and comes with the following fixes and enhancements: Fixes: Fixed the issue where the Type-C port works from BIOS Boot Menu with external USB port disabled. Fixed the issue that there is no user interface for wireless connection in BIOS Connect cloud SOS interface. Fixed the issue where the system stops responding on Dell logo when SMM Security mitigation and Secure Boot is enabled....

April 12, 2020 · 2 min · 285 words · kenno