Discussing desktops at the Collaboration Summit [LWN.net]

Discussing desktops at the Collaboration Summit

Posted Apr 10, 2008 21:59 UTC (Thu) by hmh (subscriber, #3838)
In reply to: Discussing desktops at the Collaboration Summit by iabervon
Parent article: Discussing desktops at the Collaboration Summit

The ThinkPad line (and probably the ThinkCenter line -- but I didn't check this) have
self-contained ISO updates to the BIOS and EC firmware for years now. 

And they also issue self-contained updates to storage devices (optical drives and hard disks),
which is something you don't get from anyone else as far as I know.  IBM started doing it a
long time ago, and Lenovo didn't kill it.

(Log in to post comments)

Discussing desktops at the Collaboration Summit

Posted Apr 10, 2008 22:09 UTC (Thu) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]

Last time I looked, it seemed like not all of the current ThinkPad lines had ISO updates. All
of the lines that IBM started do, and Lenovo continued that for those lines, but lines that
started since don't necessarily. In any case, what I've got is a 3000 N100, which doesn't seem
to (unless I've missed something; always possible with Lenovo's site).

Discussing desktops at the Collaboration Summit

Posted Apr 12, 2008 16:43 UTC (Sat) by hmh (subscriber, #3838) [Link]

Well, the Lenovo 3000 series is not a ThinkPad, it is not even CLOSE to a ThinkPad, and I'd
guess it doesn't get the same quality of support a ThinkPad does either.

I know of no recent ThinkPad without self-contained ISO images for BIOS and EC firmware
updates.  I just checked, even the brand-new X300 has them.

The only firmware a ThinkPad needs windows to update, AFAIK, is Intel's AMT enterprise remote
management stuff.  I need to find out more about AMT before commenting on this, for all I know
it could even be completely useless outside of a Microsoft Windows world.