Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH v3 14/14] i386: ACPI table generation code from seabios

[Gerd Hoffmann]

On 07/25/13 15:23, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 25, 2013 at 03:06:25PM +0200, Gerd Hoffmann wrote:
>>   Hi,
>>
>>>     As table content is likely to change over time,
>>>     the following measures are taken to simplify
>>>     cross-version migration:
>>>     - All tables besides the RSDP are packed in a single FW CFG entry.
>>>       This entry size is currently 23K. We round it up to 64K
>>>       to avoid too much churn there.
>>
>> Does it need to be that way?  I'd prefer to have one fw_cfg entry per table.
>>
>> cheers,
>>   Gerd
>>
> 
> It's better I think.  The advantages are:
>       - when we add more tables we don't break cross-version
>           migration compatibility

New tables are a guest-visible change, so I think we have to turn them
off for old machine types via compat properties anyway.  This will also
solve the migration issue.

>       - we have limited number of files, this way we won't
>           run out of them

Anything which prevents us from raising that number?

> what are advantages of file per table?

You can look at the tables without doing a full linker pass first, so
the firmware can easily initialize the hardware according to what it
finds in specific acpi tables.  Check FADT for pm_base.  Check MCFG for
mmconf xbar location.

cheers,
  Gerd