From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Vernon Mauery Subject: Re: [Patch] IBM Real-Time "SMI Free" mode driver -v7 Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2010 08:09:28 -0700 Message-ID: <20101021150928.GC8754@lucy> References: <20101005224718.GC4046@lucy> <20101021135429.GC22133@srcf.ucam.org> <20101021142319.GA8754@lucy> <20101021142523.GA23171@srcf.ucam.org> <20101021143821.GB8754@lucy> <20101021144234.GA23552@srcf.ucam.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Return-path: Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20101021144234.GA23552@srcf.ucam.org> Sender: linux-doc-owner@vger.kernel.org To: Matthew Garrett Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List , Randy Dunlap , Linux Documentation , Platform driver x86 List-Id: platform-driver-x86.vger.kernel.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