Re: [PATCH 1/2] smbios: Simplify reporting of unknown values

[Ilias Apalodimas <ilias.apalodimas@linaro.org>]

Hi Simon,

[...]

> > Signed-off-by: Ilias Apalodimas <ilias.apalodimas@linaro.org>
> > ---
> >  lib/smbios.c | 17 +++--------------
> >  1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 14 deletions(-)
> 
> Perhaps a better fix is to drop the smbios info?

Unfortunately there's a ton of userspace tools still using it.  So I think
we still need it

> 
> What upstream projects use this information to show things to the
> user? You showed a screenshot of some sort of system-info app. We
> could teach it about falling back to the device tree. That way we are
> not adding fake information to SMBIOS.
>

What's fake here?  The model and compatible are taken directly from the DT
and that should be accurate.  I'd rather fix the DT if that's problematic.
What would make sense for me to change is take the first token of the
compatible node instead of the entire string as it's format is expected to
be <manufacturer, model> anyway.

> Also, SMBIOS is a legacy thing and a PITA to work with. How about we
> use the device tree binding for the same info:
> 
>     smbios {
>         compatible = "u-boot,sysinfo-smbios";
> 
>         smbios {
>             system {
>                 manufacturer = "pine64";
>                 product = "rock64_rk3328";
>             };
> 
>             baseboard {
>                 manufacturer = "pine64";
>                 product = "rock64_rk3328";
>             };
> 
>             chassis {
>                 manufacturer = "pine64";
>                 product = "rock64_rk3328";
>             };
>         };
>     };
> 
> This is easy to parse and gets us away from all this legacy junk that
> we don't need.

That's the exact opposite of the patch description.  Most of these info are
already included in the DT in it's standard properties.  So if U-Boot ends
up with a DT without these we get a usable smbios table.  For example a DT 
handed over by the previous stage bootloader would not include these nodes.

As far as sysinfo-smbios node is concerned,  it's only present in 13
boards, so it's not like  it's used by the majority of boards.  Yes we
could fix them, but imho we are better off re-using what's already there
and defined on the DT spec at least for the simplistic values.

Thanks
/Ilias
> 
> Regards,
> Simon