Provided are a method, system and article of manufacture for a firmware image. A computer readable medium, comprises at least one data structure stored in the computer readable medium. The at least one data structure comprises a firmware image for installation on a hardware device and metadata, wherein the metadata is used to control the installation of the firmware image on the hardware device. A firmware update application on a data processing system interprets the metadata and based on the interpretation installs the firmware image on the hardware device. The firmware update application installs firmware images for different types of devices.