Re: [Qemu-devel] E820 (Re: [v4 PATCH 00/12] SMBIOS: build full tables in QEMU)

[Gerd Hoffmann]

  Hi,

> > From the conversation so far, it seems to me that:
> > 
> >     - type 0 is best left to the BIOS (user overrides via
> >       command line at their own risk)

I think it was a bad idea to allow overriding type0 fields in the first
place.  It also isn't used in practice.  I don't think it is a big
problem to loose that capability.

> >     - therefore, the maximum granularity of QEMU-generated
> >       elements should be full tables of a given type, and
> >       not the full SMBIOS blob at once (other mechanisms to
> >       allow the BIOS to insert its own type 0 welcome, but
> >       so far this seems the most straightforward one).

Just an idea:  Is the table ordering important?  I don't think so.  If
qemu supplies a blob with all tables except type0, can the firmware
simply append a type0 record to the blob supplied by qemu?

> I don't agree - I think ultimately we want QEMU to generate the full
> SMBIOS table and pass it to the firmware via the romfile_loader
> mechanism.

I still think the firmware (and *only* the firmware) should supply the
type0 table.  I also think seabios should fill in something more
sensible in there, such as "Vendor: SeaBIOS" and "Version:
rel-1.7.4-0-g96917a8-...".

> The only thing that has been raised as an issue with this
> is one bit in the smbios table (UEFI support).

IMO 'dmidecode -t0' should show what firmware you are running
(seabios/ovmf/coreboot/whatever), not something made up by qemu.

cheers,
  Gerd