This isn't a software update, it's a firmware update. I don't expect updating firmware to be painless; and I'd rather it not be painless. Updating a PROM is a messy process fraught with peril, I want as many checks & balances between my clumsy fingers and that flash as possible.
> With whatever else a normal human has going on in life? There's no way.
Many vendors don't ship ELF binaries update their firmware at all, and yet I still manage to flash their devices. I've lost count of how many times I have to throw FreeDOS a USB drive to flash the RAID controllers I use. Putting Ubuntu on a flash drive to install a firmware update is hardly any more complicated than that. (At a minimum: at least you'll have a reasonably competent shell and functional networking w/ an Ubuntu live image.)
Think about what you are asking first. A VM is a virtual machine that theoretically is separated from the base hardware. I don't think a VM is the solution for Bios Updates or changing bits on the physical hardware itself.
Of course, you can monkeypatch the VM's bios all you want! But that would be erased the next time you start a new vm.
The only other way is to find a security hole in KVM, qEMU, or XEN, and then exploit it to break out of the VM[1] and get access to base hardware. Hard to do, but it does happen.
This would be my way of handling it. I usually keep a usb stick around with ubuntu on it just because the live version of it is incredible useful as a tool.
> System76 will investigate producing a distro-agnostic command line firmware install tool. Follow us on your preferred social network for updates.