Re: [Qemu-devel] Re: [PATCH 0/3]: Add UUID command-line option

[Gleb Natapov <gleb@qumranet.com>]

On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 03:25:39PM -0500, Anthony Liguori wrote:
> Jamie Lokier wrote:
>>> If you care to do this sort of work, you can certainly recompile the  
>>> BIOS.  The source is there afterall.
>>>     
>>
>> Indeed, same goes for all the other QEMU options.  The question is
>> whether it's useful enough to have an option, or obscure enough not to.
>>
>> I'm inclined to think modifying ACPI tables is obscure, except
>> perhaps for specific tweaks that some versions of Windows or Linux
>> might need to run correctly, or to prevent them from using some
>> hardware feature or other.
>>   
>
> In the future, it may be interesting to allow a precompiled ACPI table  
> to be loaded and specified as part of a machine configuration file.  I  
> think it makes a lot more sense if you can actually change the machine  
> layout without recompiling.
>
We don't need to change existing ACPI tables (well except of
OEMID/OEMTableID). We need to have a way to provide additional ACPI
tables. This is to support Windows Vista OEM activation, so blame
Microsoft for that :). Actually the need to provide additional ACPI
tables to BIOS exists on real HW too. See following link for a tutorial
how to do it for Award BIOS:
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/02/18/improved-way-to-add-slic-slp-20-table-into-bios-acpi-to-activate-windows-vista-oem/

--
			Gleb.