This will update the dbx (denylist) for Secure Boot in your board's firmware.

Seeing how you are using Pop!_OS which does not support Secure Boot, you must have Secure Boot disabled. As such this update will not affect your install (unless you re-enable Secure Boot in your firmware settings).

Generally it is recommended that you apply firmware updates ASAP. Distros that support Secure Boot are expected to hold back dbx updates that would blacklist themselves. (This does not occor frequently to begin with)

Last edited by Hooly on 20 Dec 2023 at 6:59 pm UTC

This will update the dbx (denylist) for Secure Boot in your board's firmware.

Seeing how you are using Pop!_OS which does not support Secure Boot, you must have Secure Boot disabled. As such this update will not affect your install (unless you re-enable Secure Boot in your firmware settings).

Generally it is recommended that you apply firmware updates ASAP. Distros that support Secure Boot are expected to hold back dbx updates that would blacklist themselves. (This does not occor frequently to begin with)

Thanks for the quick reply! Your help really means a lot!

Do you have any more advice regarding firmware updates in general?

Is there something I should avoid or that requires being extra careful?

Dos and don'ts?

Success!

I clicked the Update button, then Reboot and Install. It was over in less than a minute, and when I go to Settings -> Firmware, it says UEFI dbx 371.

Everything is working fine, as far as I can tell. But man, was it stressful!

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The process looked like this:

- I clicked the Reboot and Install button. (Took a deep breath.)

- My laptop rebooted and went to the Lenovo screen as usual. There were no messages on the screen. No prompts to press anything or do anything. The fans remained quiet.

- Maybe 10-15 seconds later, Pop!_OS booted as usual and was ready to rock. Much to my relief!

---

There was a fair bit of homework done beforehand.

- I carefully read the official Pop!_OS instructions on how to update the firmware. There was mention of fans spinning at full speed and several reboots necessary - none of that in my case.

- I found a video on YouTube on how to update the firmware in Pop!_OS.

- I read every Reddit post on the subject. There are a lot of people out there who were worried, just like me, and didn't get a conclusive answer about what they should do. At least I didn't find any "I bricked my computer" stories, so I took that as a good sign.

- I got help from this forum. Thanks again, Hooly!

Sorry for the long post. I thought others might find this helpful, so I tried to be as detailed as possible.

Last edited by Gooda on 26 Dec 2023 at 10:04 am UTC

Yeah, fwupd is pretty great. It's excellent a number of companies have decided to implement it for firmware updates, even if they've averse to Linux otherwise.