From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from list by lists.gnu.org with archive (Exim 4.71) id 1YIMdM-0001sG-Il for mharc-grub-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 02 Feb 2015 14:26:08 -0500 Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:50645) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YIMdJ-0001qk-Fp for grub-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 02 Feb 2015 14:26:06 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YIMdG-0001Zr-0V for grub-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 02 Feb 2015 14:26:05 -0500 Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([209.132.183.28]:40738) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YIMdF-0001Zf-PJ for grub-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 02 Feb 2015 14:26:01 -0500 Received: from int-mx13.intmail.prod.int.phx2.redhat.com (int-mx13.intmail.prod.int.phx2.redhat.com [10.5.11.26]) by mx1.redhat.com (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id t12JPxAu014010 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=FAIL); Mon, 2 Feb 2015 14:25:59 -0500 Received: from [10.16.186.145] (prarit-guest.khw.lab.eng.bos.redhat.com [10.16.186.145]) by int-mx13.intmail.prod.int.phx2.redhat.com (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id t12JPvfc002571; Mon, 2 Feb 2015 14:25:58 -0500 Message-ID: <54CFCF45.4020201@redhat.com> Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2015 14:25:57 -0500 From: Prarit Bhargava User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:17.0) Gecko/20131028 Thunderbird/17.0.10 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Rajat Jain Subject: Re: [PATCH] Add a module for retrieving SMBIOS information References: <87r3u92hln.fsf@gmail.com> <54CF5D70.4020904@redhat.com> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.68 on 10.5.11.26 X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 3.x X-Received-From: 209.132.183.28 Cc: The development of GNU GRUB , David Michael , Raghuraman Thirumalairajan , Andrei Borzenkov , Sanjay Jain , Stu Grossman X-BeenThere: grub-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list Reply-To: The development of GNU GRUB List-Id: The development of GNU GRUB List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2015 19:26:06 -0000 On 02/02/2015 01:01 PM, Rajat Jain wrote: > Hello, > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: David Michael [mailto:fedora.dm0@gmail.com] >> Sent: Monday, February 02, 2015 9:10 AM >> To: Prarit Bhargava >> Cc: The development of GNU GRUB; Andrei Borzenkov; Rajat Jain; Stu >> Grossman; Raghuraman Thirumalairajan; Sanjay Jain >> Subject: Re: [PATCH] Add a module for retrieving SMBIOS information >> >> On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 6:20 AM, Prarit Bhargava >> wrote: >>> On 02/01/2015 09:05 PM, David Michael wrote: >>>> * grub-core/commands/i386/smbios.c: New file. >>>> * grub-core/Makefile.core.def (smbios): New module. >>>> * docs/grub.texi (smbios): New node. >>>> (Command-line and menu entry commands): Add a menu entry for >> smbios. >>>> --- >>>> >>>> Hi, >>>> >>>> There was some interest on help-grub about supporting SMBIOS access >>>> upstream. > > > I think having the capability to parse the SMBIOS data is certainly very interesting to us, and currently we have the following use cases to make use of it: > > 1) We have a board that boots Linux and this board itself can be plugged into one of different chassis types. We need to pass different parameters to the kernel based on the "CHASSIS_TYPE" information that is passed by the bios in the DMI / SMBIOS tables. > > 2) We may have a USB stick that can go into multiple boards, and the exact kernel to be loaded depends on the machine information (PRODUCT_NAME etc) passed via the DMI. > > I hope that clarifies our usecase and needs where this functionality will be immensely helpful. > > Thanks, Thanks Rajat, that does really explain things. I'll take a closer look in the next few days ... P. > > Rajat > > > > >>> >>> OOC, why? Why would you need to do this? I'm certainly not against >>> doing this but just wondering exactly why you want to do this. >> >> The thread on grub-help asked about booting particular kernel versions off a >> hot-pluggable drive based on the detected hardware, which this would >> allow. >> >> I originally wrote it to change what options are available based on whether a >> disk is being booted physically or virtually. Since QEMU makes it easy to add >> SMBIOS entries on the command line, I've also been using it for random >> tweaks like showing a vga_text boot menu instead of gfxterm when running >> QEMU with "-display curses". >> >> Thanks. >> >> David