From: Vernon Mauery <vernux@us.ibm.com>
To: Matthew Garrett <mjg59@srcf.ucam.org>
Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@xenotime.net>,
Linux Documentation <linux-doc@vger.kernel.org>,
Platform driver x86 <platform-driver-x86@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [Patch] IBM Real-Time "SMI Free" mode driver -v7
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2010 08:09:28 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20101021150928.GC8754@lucy> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20101021144234.GA23552@srcf.ucam.org>
On 21-Oct-2010 03:42 PM, Matthew Garrett wrote:
>On Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 07:38:21AM -0700, Vernon Mauery wrote:
>> On 21-Oct-2010 03:25 PM, Matthew Garrett wrote:
>>> Oops, sorry! I mean running on older kernels.
>>
>> Do older kernels not have DMI support? I would think that if an
>> enterprise distribution wanted this driver they would likely already
>> have DMI support backported as well.
>
>I mean that they may run the current driver on newer hardware that isn't
>in the DMI table, and that may be the only thing preventing it from
>working.
>
>>> I'd suggest using DMI to verify that it's an IBM, and perhaps also using
>>> DMI to check that it's a server or blade rather than a laptop or
>>> desktop. After that you could just check the ebda rather than having to
>>> have an entry for every specific machine.
>>
>> I went for a better safe than sorry route. Before I added the DMI
>> checking I had some reports of this getting loaded on non-IBM hardware
>> and it came up with some nasty error messages. I figured since I knew
>> exactly which platforms have support, I could just limit the driver to
>> those. Then there is the force parameter that allows a user to ignore
>> the DMI data and try to load the driver anyway.
>
>It's preferable to have the driver be able to support future hardware
>built to the same spec without having to add extra IDs. It's easy to
>make sure that you're loading on an IBM server - are there any of these
>that have the _RTL_ header but will break?
No, if it has the _RTL_ header it should be fine. I was more concerned
about the driver trying to map the EBDA and reading through it on
non-ibm platforms, so I guess just a check to see that it is IBM should
be sufficient. Let me get a patch that does that.
--Vernon
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2010-10-21 15:09 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 9+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2010-10-05 22:47 [Patch] IBM Real-Time "SMI Free" mode driver -v7 Vernon Mauery
2010-10-21 13:54 ` Matthew Garrett
2010-10-21 14:23 ` Vernon Mauery
2010-10-21 14:25 ` Matthew Garrett
2010-10-21 14:38 ` Vernon Mauery
2010-10-21 14:42 ` Matthew Garrett
2010-10-21 15:09 ` Vernon Mauery [this message]
2010-10-22 21:13 ` [Patch 1/2] ibm_rtl: DMI match should include all IBM machines Vernon Mauery
2010-10-22 21:17 ` [Patch 2/2] ibm_rtl: check for efi_enabled Vernon Mauery
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