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SubjectRe: [Patch] IBM Real-Time "SMI Free" mode driver -v7
On 21-Oct-2010 03:42 PM, Matthew Garrett wrote:
>On Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 07:38:21AM -0700, Vernon Mauery wrote:
>> On 21-Oct-2010 03:25 PM, Matthew Garrett wrote:
>>> Oops, sorry! I mean running on older kernels.
>>
>> Do older kernels not have DMI support? I would think that if an
>> enterprise distribution wanted this driver they would likely already
>> have DMI support backported as well.
>
>I mean that they may run the current driver on newer hardware that isn't
>in the DMI table, and that may be the only thing preventing it from
>working.
>
>>> I'd suggest using DMI to verify that it's an IBM, and perhaps also using
>>> DMI to check that it's a server or blade rather than a laptop or
>>> desktop. After that you could just check the ebda rather than having to
>>> have an entry for every specific machine.
>>
>> I went for a better safe than sorry route. Before I added the DMI
>> checking I had some reports of this getting loaded on non-IBM hardware
>> and it came up with some nasty error messages. I figured since I knew
>> exactly which platforms have support, I could just limit the driver to
>> those. Then there is the force parameter that allows a user to ignore
>> the DMI data and try to load the driver anyway.
>
>It's preferable to have the driver be able to support future hardware
>built to the same spec without having to add extra IDs. It's easy to
>make sure that you're loading on an IBM server - are there any of these
>that have the _RTL_ header but will break?

No, if it has the _RTL_ header it should be fine. I was more concerned
about the driver trying to map the EBDA and reading through it on
non-ibm platforms, so I guess just a check to see that it is IBM should
be sufficient. Let me get a patch that does that.

--Vernon


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