Well, I took a chance just now. I saw today that there’s a firmware update (v2.1) available for my camera, a Panasonic DMC-LX3. I saw mention of better white balance performance, which looked useful, so I wanted to go for it. I hesitated some microseconds, though, because there were downloads for Windows and for Mac, and I run Linux. I reasoned that Mac is not Windows, and Linux is not Windows, and that in the end I needed a .bin file extracted onto an SD card (not an executable file running on my computer with the camera connected to the computer), and so I should just follow the Mac instructions.
I take no responsibility for anything you may do to your computer or camera should you happen to come across this (yeah, right) and decide to do as I did, but it turned out well for me. I charged my battery, extracted the .bin file from the .zip file in the “Mac” download (using Ark), put the file onto the SD card, and followed the instructions on Panasonic’s website. Mere seconds later my firmware claims to be v2.1, and my camera offers me exposure bracketing up to +/-3eV. I have yet to see whether I like my pictures better or not…