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Look up upgrade in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Upgrading is the process of replacing a product with a newer version of the same product. In computing and consumer electronics an upgrade is generally a replacement of hardware, software or firmware with a newer or better version, in order to bring the system up to date or to improve its characteristics.
Examples of common hardware upgrades include installing additional memory (RAM), adding larger hard disks, replacing microprocessor cards or graphics cards, and installing new versions of software. Many other upgrades are possible as well.
Common software upgrades include changing the version of an operating system, of an office suite, of an anti-virus program, or of various other tools.
Common firmware upgrades include the updating of the iPod control menus, the Xbox 360 dashboard, or the non-volatile flash memory that contains the embedded operating system for a consumer electronics device.
Users can often download software and firmware upgrades from the Internet. Often the download is a patch—it does not contain the new version of the software in its entirety, just the changes that need to be made. Software patches usually aim to improve functionality or solve problems with security. Rushed patches can cause more harm than good and are therefore sometimes regarded[ by whom? ] with skepticism for a short time after release. [1] Patches are generally free.
A software or firmware upgrade can be major or minor and the release version code-number increases accordingly. A major upgrade will change the version number, whereas a minor update will often append a ".01", ".02", ".03", etc. For example, "version 10.03" might designate the third minor upgrade of version 10. In commercial software, the minor upgrades (or updates) are generally free, but the major versions must be purchased.
Companies usually make software upgrades for the following reasons: 1.) to support industry regulatory requirements 2.) to access emerging technologies with new features, and tools 3.) to meet the demands of changing markets 4.) to continue to receive comprehensive product support. [2]
Although developers usually produce upgrades in order to improve a product, there are risks involved—including the possibility that the upgrade will worsen the product.
Upgrades of hardware involve a risk that new hardware will not be compatible with other pieces of hardware in a system. For example, an upgrade of RAM may not be compatible with existing RAM in a computer. Other hardware components may not be compatible after either an upgrade or downgrade, due to the non-availability of compatible drivers for the hardware with a specific operating system. Conversely, there is the same risk of non-compatibility when software is upgraded or downgraded for previously functioning hardware to no longer function.
Upgrades of software introduce the risk that the new version (or patch) will contain a bug, causing the program to malfunction in some way or not to function at all. For example, in October 2005, a glitch in a software upgrade caused trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange to shut down for most of the day. [3] Similar have occurred: from important government systems [4] to freeware on the internet.
Upgrades can also worsen a product subjectively. A user may prefer an older version even if a newer version functions perfectly as designed. This may happen for a variety of reasons, including the user being already accustomed to the behavior of the old version or because the upgrade removed some features (see iPhone jack removal controversy or OtherOS).
A further risk of software upgrades is that they can brick the device being upgraded, such as if power fails while the upgrade is in the middle of being installed. This is an especially big concern for embedded devices, in which upgrades are typically all-or-nothing (the upgrade is a firmware or filesystem image, which isn't usable if it's only partially written), and which have limited ability to recover from a failed upgrade. [5] Solutions to this generally involve keeping multiple copies of firmware, so that one can be upgraded while the other remains intact as a backup, but there are still holes which can cause this to fail. [5] [6] [7] Tools such as Mender.io, [8] Sysup, [5] SWUpdate, [6] RAUC, [7] and OSTree [9] provide more complete solutions that implement upgrades in a safe atomic way, and reduce or eliminate the need to customize bootloaders and other components. Desktop systems are more likely to use something like snapshots or restore points; these are more efficient as they only require a small fraction of space to store the changes from the old system to the new one, but the lack of a turnkey implementation for embedded systems makes this impractical.
In computing, BIOS is firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the booting process. The BIOS firmware comes pre-installed on an IBM PC or IBM PC compatible's system board and exists in some UEFI-based systems to maintain compatibility with operating systems that do not support UEFI native operation. The name originates from the Basic Input/Output System used in the CP/M operating system in 1975. The BIOS originally proprietary to the IBM PC has been reverse engineered by some companies looking to create compatible systems. The interface of that original system serves as a de facto standard.
Sorcerer was a source-based Linux distribution. The distribution downloads and compiles source code to install and update installed software.
In computing, firmware is a specific class of computer software that provides the low-level control for a device's specific hardware. Firmware, such as the BIOS of a personal computer, may contain basic functions of a device, and may provide hardware abstraction services to higher-level software such as operating systems. For less complex devices, firmware may act as the device's complete operating system, performing all control, monitoring and data manipulation functions. Typical examples of devices containing firmware are embedded systems, home and personal-use appliances, computers, and computer peripherals.
An embedded system is a computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is embedded as part of a complete device often including electrical or electronic hardware and mechanical parts. Because an embedded system typically controls physical operations of the machine that it is embedded within, it often has real-time computing constraints. Embedded systems control many devices in common use. In 2009, it was estimated that ninety-eight percent of all microprocessors manufactured were used in embedded systems.
Hardware abstractions are sets of routines in software that provide programs with access to hardware resources through programming interfaces. The programming interface allows all devices in a particular class C of hardware devices to be accessed through identical interfaces even though C may contain different subclasses of devices that each provide a different hardware interface.
Wind River Systems, also known as Wind River, is an Alameda, California–based company, subsidiary of Aptiv PLC. The company develops embedded system and cloud software consisting of real-time operating systems software, industry-specific software, simulation technology, development tools and middleware.
American Megatrends International, LLC, doing business as AMI, is an international hardware and software company, specializing in PC hardware and firmware. The company was founded in 1985 by Pat Sarma and Subramonian Shankar. It is headquartered in Building 800 at 3095 Satellite Boulevard in unincorporated Gwinnett County, Georgia, United States, near the city of Duluth, and in the Atlanta metropolitan area.
QEMU is a free and open-source emulator. It emulates a computer's processor through dynamic binary translation and provides a set of different hardware and device models for the machine, enabling it to run a variety of guest operating systems. It can interoperate with Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) to run virtual machines at near-native speed. QEMU can also do emulation for user-level processes, allowing applications compiled for one architecture to run on another.
coreboot, formerly known as LinuxBIOS, is a software project aimed at replacing proprietary firmware found in most computers with a lightweight firmware designed to perform only the minimum number of tasks necessary to load and run a modern 32-bit or 64-bit operating system.
Dreambox is a series of Linux-powered DVB satellite, terrestrial and cable digital television receivers, produced by German multimedia vendor Dream Multimedia.
The NSLU2 is a network-attached storage (NAS) device made by Linksys introduced in 2004 and discontinued in 2008. It makes USB flash memory and hard disks accessible over a network using the SMB protocol. It was superseded mainly by the NAS200 and in another sense by the WRT600N and WRT300N/350N which both combine a Wi-Fi router with a storage link.
A brick is a mobile device, game console, router, computer or other consumer electronic device that is no longer functional due to corrupted firmware, a hardware problem, or other damage. The term analogizes the device to a brick's modern technological usefulness.
In the context of free and open-source software, proprietary software only available as a binary executable is referred to as a blob or binary blob. The term usually refers to a device driver module loaded into the kernel of an open-source operating system, and is sometimes also applied to code running outside the kernel, such as system firmware images, microcode updates, or userland programs. The term blob was first used in database management systems to describe a collection of binary data stored as a single entity.
VMware ESXi is an enterprise-class, type-1 hypervisor developed by VMware for deploying and serving virtual computers. As a type-1 hypervisor, ESXi is not a software application that is installed on an operating system (OS); instead, it includes and integrates vital OS components, such as a kernel.
The multi-stage booting process of Linux is in many ways similar to the BSD and other Unix-style boot processes, from which it derives.
Intel Active Management Technology (AMT) is hardware and firmware for remote out-of-band management of select business computers, running on the Intel Management Engine, a microprocessor subsystem not exposed to the user, intended for monitoring, maintenance, updating, and repairing systems. Out-of-band (OOB) or hardware-based management is different from software-based management and software management agents.
Kickstart is the bootstrap firmware of the Amiga computers developed by Commodore International. Its purpose is to initialize the Amiga hardware and core components of AmigaOS and then attempt to boot from a bootable volume, such as a floppy disk. Most Amiga models were shipped with the Kickstart firmware stored on ROM chips.
AmigaOS is a family of proprietary native operating systems of the Amiga and AmigaOne personal computers. It was developed first by Commodore International and introduced with the launch of the first Amiga, the Amiga 1000, in 1985. Early versions of AmigaOS required the Motorola 68000 series of 16-bit and 32-bit microprocessors. Later versions were developed by Haage & Partner and then Hyperion Entertainment. A PowerPC microprocessor is required for the most recent release, AmigaOS 4.
The Logitech Unifying Receiver is a small dedicated USB wireless receiver, based on the nRF24L-family of RF devices, that allows up to six compatible Logitech human interface devices to be linked to the same computer using 2.4 GHz band radio communication. Receivers that are bundled with a Logitech product are paired with the device at the factory. When purchasing a replacement receiver or connecting multiple devices to one receiver, pairing requires the free-of-charge Logitech Unifying software, available for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. On Linux the Solaar software can be used to adjust the configurations. Although not compatible with Bluetooth, devices pair to Unifying Receivers in a similar way. Peripherals remain paired, and can then be used on systems not supporting the software. Logitech receivers compatible with the Unifying protocol can be identified by the orange Unifying logo, which distinguishes them from Logitech Nano receivers of similar appearance, which pair in a similar manner but only with a single device, without using the Unifying protocol.
Custom firmware, also known as aftermarket firmware, is an unofficial new or modified version of firmware created by third parties on devices such as video game consoles, mobile phones, and various embedded device types to provide new features or to unlock hidden functionality. In the video game console community, the term is often written as custom firmware or simply CFW, referring to an altered version of the original system software inside a video game console such as the PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita/PlayStation TV, PlayStation 4, Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Switch. Installing custom firmware on some devices requires bootloader unlocking.