Re: [PATCH 00/10] SMBIOS improvements

[Tom Rini <trini@konsulko.com>]

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On Sun, Sep 15, 2024 at 07:57:19PM +0200, Heinrich Schuchardt wrote:
> On 8/26/24 21:59, Tom Rini wrote:
> > On Mon, Aug 26, 2024 at 01:12:16PM -0600, Simon Glass wrote:
> > > Hi Tom,
> > > 
> > > On Mon, 26 Aug 2024 at 12:23, Tom Rini <trini@konsulko.com> wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > On Mon, Aug 26, 2024 at 11:58:54AM -0600, Simon Glass wrote:
> > > > > Hi Caleb,
> > > > > 
> > > > > On Mon, 19 Aug 2024 at 17:03, Caleb Connolly <caleb.connolly@linaro.org> wrote:
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Hi Simon,
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > > As a general comment, this is adding a load of code which is used by a
> > > > > > > lot of platforms. As more and more aarch64 platforms are created, this
> > > > > > > data grows. Why not use the devicetree for this hardware information?
> > > > > > > That is what it is for.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > This data does not belong in devicetree, the various system registers
> > > > > > exist to describe this information... Putting it in DT would be
> > > > > > duplicating it.
> > > > > 
> > > > > I am not wanting to duplicate info which can be read from system registers.
> > > > > 
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Using DT for this would additionally require having bindings accepted
> > > > > > upstream and for all SoCs to add them. To what end?
> > > > > 
> > > > > To get the correct information in there. How are boards supposed to
> > > > > add SMBIOS info? Do we end up creating a whole infra in U-Boot just
> > > > > for the driver to read it out? It just doesn't make any sense to me...
> > > > > 
> > > > > Let's put hardware info in the DT where it belongs.
> > > > 
> > > > I'm a little confused here because of some older threads on this overall
> > > > topic. Part of the issue here is that in user space, "everyone" has
> > > > SMBIOS-based tooling today, and wants to have that work, rather than
> > > > inventing new tooling or modify existing tooling. And you were concerned
> > > > I thought that we had tied SMBIOS too much to EFI being present when
> > > > indeed it should be possible to pass the location along to the OS
> > > > without EFI, but at the time Linux at least only supported that notion
> > > > on MIPS I think?
> > > 
> > > That is a whole other concern I have, that we are perpetuating this
> > > legacy format which is a real pain to work with, when we already have
> > > devicetree. Let's leave that issue aside as I have not detected any
> > > interest in solving that problem, or even any agreement that it is a
> > > problem.
> > 
> > OK, yes, lets set that aside.
> > 
> > > But for this particular series, I am just wanting to get the correct
> > > info in there. Having the CPU-detection code provide an opinion about
> > > what type of chassis is in use (just to take an example, the patch
> > > pieces I highlighted have been dropped from the email I am replying
> > > to) just seems a bit daft to me. Only the board vendor would know that
> > > info.
> > 
> > Yes, I agree the detection should be reworked a good bit as some
> > information will be board design specific while others SoC specific. And
> > we should avoid adding many unused at run time strings to all platforms
> > that enable this too (looking at all the CPU vendor related stuff).
> > 
> 
> I doubt on productive machines there will be much use of U-Boot's smbios
> command use. It is more a developer tool.
> 
> For reading all the details we currently have
> lib/efi_loader/smbiosdump.efi which can dump the SMBIOS table to a file
> that dmidecode can read.
> 
> Maybe instead of adding more and more decoding logic into the U-Boot
> smbios command we should add an smbios sub-command to dump to a file.
> This would be less of a hassle than running an EFI program for the same
> purpose.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

-- 
Tom

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