Andi Kleen wrote:
On Thu, Nov 24, 2005 at 02:48:25PM -0800, [email protected] wrote:
On Thu, Nov 24, 2005 at 11:12:14PM +0000, Alan Cox wrote:
On Iau, 2005-11-24 at 20:14 +0100, Andi Kleen wrote:
I proposed something like that - best with an ASCII string
("First DIMM on the top left corner") But getting such stuff into BIOS
is difficult and long winded.
Propose it the desktop management people and get it into the DMI
standard. They already have entries for each memory slot, they already
have entries for descriptive strings for connectors. In fact you may
well be able to 'bend' the spec enough to do it as is.
There are enough fields that maybe one of them is loose enough to mean
this. It doesn't help us convince mobo vendors to support it, though.
With arbitary desktop/laptop/etc. vendors it's pretty hopeless I agree.
But I suspect there is a chance at least on the server side. There
is only a limited number of companies working on server BIOSes
for their boards and they tend to be more receptive to Linux's need
because it's now a significant part of their market.
It would seem that the OEMs buying the board would like this feature,
since it could be incorporated into POST, diagnostic CDs, etc. And since
server owners are more likely to have a service contract, anything to
make service calls faster is a benefit to the system vendor.
And it's clearly an obviously useful "RAS feature" which is
fully buzzword compatible and everything.
IMHO it's time that Linux gets more proactive regarding talking
to BIOS vendors. Perhaps a generic "BIOS writers guide for Linux"
would be a good thing. I have at least one other extension I would like
BIOS vendors to support. Just would need to come up with a writeup
for a clearly defined specification.
If someone handed them some good specs except for the table, I suspect
they would see the benefit. Independent BIOS writers compete for board
contracts, in-house writers want features with one time cost and every
time benefit, I think you're right that this would be a benefit to everyone.
Given that it seems so simple, is there a reason why this hasn't been
around for ages?
--
-bill davidsen ([email protected])
"The secret to procrastination is to put things off until the
last possible moment - but no longer" -me
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