From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1M64eI-0004LA-Mf for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Mon, 18 May 2009 11:21:07 -0400 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1M64eD-0004Is-JI for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Mon, 18 May 2009 11:21:06 -0400 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=58961 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1M64eD-0004Ig-8P for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Mon, 18 May 2009 11:21:01 -0400 Received: from mail-px0-f173.google.com ([209.85.216.173]:39225) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1M64eC-0006uw-P7 for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Mon, 18 May 2009 11:21:01 -0400 Received: by pxi3 with SMTP id 3so1854772pxi.4 for ; Mon, 18 May 2009 08:20:59 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <4A109C3E.70604@codemonkey.ws> References: <1242574141-18488-1-git-send-email-aliguori@us.ibm.com> <1242574141-18488-2-git-send-email-aliguori@us.ibm.com> <4A103084.2000508@redhat.com> <4A1031F4.4050401@us.ibm.com> <4A1039EB.4070906@redhat.com> <20090517175126.GA13426@shareable.org> <000001c9d71a$1a448730$4ecd9590$@com> <4A105358.80605@redhat.com> <000101c9d71e$8888fec0$999afc40$@com> <4A109C3E.70604@codemonkey.ws> Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 08:20:58 -0700 Message-ID: <13426df10905180820k25125185v26abe2418890791@mail.gmail.com> Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] Re: [PATCH 1/4] Add GPL bios as a submodule From: ron minnich Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable List-Id: qemu-devel.nongnu.org List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: Anthony Liguori Cc: Anthony Liguori , Dustin Kirkland , Glauber Costa , qemu-devel@nongnu.org, Avi Kivity , Alex Graf On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 4:22 PM, Anthony Liguori wr= ote: > I find this very unlikely. =A0I don't think coreboot bothers with things = like > building ACPI tables. =A0Why would it have to when it has a full Linux > environment? We did not used to. But it's been a long time since we did just linux in flash. Now there are lots of other combinations: coreboot+seabios coreboot+seabios+gpxe coreboot+tiano and on and on ... Many of these combinations require ACPI and/or SMM. Sad news: vendor hardware is nowadays *more*, not *less*, dependent on SMM -- very few modern Intel chipsets can function without a working SMM layer -- or so the people with the docs tell me. So SMM and ACPI, both huge security issues in their own right, are almost impossible to eliminate nowadays. And, good fun, some new chips now require that microcode be patched *before* memory is even turned out. Good fun. No more patching microcode from Linux! So coreboot supports SMM&ACPI where they are needed. SMM is mostly restricted to Intel chips for now. coreboot also supports tiano, But oh, the irony!: Tiano was billed as a way to an "open source" bios, in competition with coreboot, but you really can't build a completely open source BIOS with Tiano alone: you need to have coreboot to turn on the hardware because you need chipset stuff that only comes from vendors as a binary blob. So, again, AFAIK, nobody is really bothering to do much with Tiano core. Tiano is at most half a BIOS or less. The only fully open source BIOS stack you can get with Tiano is going to be one that includes coreboot. To pile on the funny bits, vendors, after telling us for 10 years that linux-in-flash was a stupid idea, are buying into it in a big way. At the same time coreboot is supporting more traditional models, some BIOS vendor are jumping on the Linux-in-FLASH bandwagon. Now wait, whose side are we on anyway? > It's a neat project and I think it's valuable to make it more easily used= in > QEMU, but I don't think it can replace our existing BIOS. =A0I also don't > think that that's its general mission statement either. =A0I think its pr= imary > purpose is to eliminate all the legacy firmware junk and provide the > quickest and most featureful environment for large clusters. I think it can replace your existing BIOS. I would not have said that one year ago. Nowadays, coreboot+seabios can even boot/install xp, vista, and windows 7. I have now got systems that boot anything I've tried that used to use a traditional BIOS. These guys: http://xfc.xfce.org/index.html are using coreboot for a build-bot because the BIOS that came with the board did not even work; coreboot got them going. BTW, thanks for qemu. I do most of my initial coreboot testing on qemu. It's really been a lifesaver. Conversely, qemu (and kvm for that matter) users who want a fast booting bios that stays out of their way can do well with coreboot. There are a lot of people besides me using coreboot+qemu. Qemu is a very fine piece of work! ron