[coreboot] coreboot BIOSisms

Peter Stuge peter at stuge.se
Wed Jun 11 04:17:49 CEST 2008


On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 07:02:26PM -0400, Kevin O'Connor wrote:
> For example, if the end consumer wants an smbios table,

This is exactly my point:

End consumer is oblivious to these data structures, and rightly so.
End consumer only wants $kernel to run and be featureful.

$kernel wants BIOSisms to run and be featureful.

We have to provide BIOSisms for $kernels for now.


But we have a unique opportunity to revise these data structures now!

By creating a good intermediate format, we will eventually be able to
replace many if not all BIOSisms with something better documented,
maybe even something simpler and certainly something nicer.


> why translate from "coreboot->coreboot table->legacybios->smbios
> table" when we can just go from "coreboot->smbios table"?

Staying true to the design that coreboot is not a BIOS, but something
better.


> Adding an additional program in between seems to make things more
> complicated.

Short term, yes - slightly more complicated but much better structured.
Long term the additional program dies.


//Peter




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