Good News! After Lenovo and Dell, Now HP Pledges to Support Linux Vendor Firmware Service
Good News! After Lenovo and Dell, Now HP Pledges to Support Linux Vendor Firmware Service
https://itsfoss.com/news/hp-supports-lvfs/
Publish Date: 2026-05-22 01:33:00
Source Domain: itsfoss.com
As long as I’ve been a Linux user, I can remember one of the biggest issues being firmware support on the kernel.
The issue has been notorious, with a lot of new users being discouraged immediately after joining, and the benevolent dictator Linus Torvalds himself giving the bird to Nvidia, a sentiment shared by almost every user who had tried to make Nvidia work on Linux a few years ago.
Things have been getting better recently, though, especially with LVFS (Linux Vendor Firmware Service) on the scene now, providing hardware vendors a portal to upload firmware updates, which can then be downloaded and installed by users through clients such as GNOME Software or fwupdmgr.
Why does LVFS matter?
The relief and effort of LVFS cannot be understated, as before a central secure portal for firmware, the users only had the option to trust some random third party upload on the internet, often breaking or worse, infecting their systems. LVFS fills a space where the vendors can provide secure firmware, with Linux-specific .cab files.
The roadbloack…
The issue, however, obviously, had been funding with the largest contributors being the usual suspects, Framework and Open Source Framework Foundation, at $10K a year. Recently, however, Lenovo and Dell joined suite as Premier sponsors, which is the highest tier at $100K a year each, making the project more sustainable and manageable. These companies contributing makes a lot of sense, considering they are two of the bigger computer companies which offer Linux by default in some cases, especially with Lenovo’s ThinkPads being the Linux users’ favorite for decades.
Welcome the newcomer!
And now, as you’d have it, HP has followed suit as a Premier sponsor, also providing $100K a year, right alongside Dell and Lenovo. This is already being reflected on the homepage of LVFS, with a quote from HP’s Senior Vice President as well:
“LVFS enables quick, easy and timely BIOS updates, so countless customers…
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