From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S965123AbVHPFu6 (ORCPT ); Tue, 16 Aug 2005 01:50:58 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S965122AbVHPFu6 (ORCPT ); Tue, 16 Aug 2005 01:50:58 -0400 Received: from adsl-67-65-14-122.dsl.austtx.swbell.net ([67.65.14.122]:44990 "EHLO laptop.michaels-house.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S965121AbVHPFu5 (ORCPT ); Tue, 16 Aug 2005 01:50:57 -0400 Subject: Re: [RFC][PATCH 2.6.13-rc6] add Dell Systems Management Base Driver (dcdbas) with sysfs support From: Michael E Brown To: Chris Wedgwood Cc: Kyle Moffett , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Doug Warzecha In-Reply-To: <20050816053541.GA26150@taniwha.stupidest.org> References: <1124169589.10755.194.camel@soltek.michaels-house.net> <20050816053541.GA26150@taniwha.stupidest.org> Content-Type: text/plain Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2005 00:50:49 -0500 Message-Id: <1124171449.10755.217.camel@soltek.michaels-house.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.0.4 (2.0.4-4) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Mon, 2005-08-15 at 22:35 -0700, Chris Wedgwood wrote: > On Tue, Aug 16, 2005 at 12:19:49AM -0500, Michael E Brown wrote: > > > Hmm... did I mention libsmbios? :-) > > http://linux.dell.com/libsmbios/main. > > I'm aware of it --- it seems pretty limited right now and I'm still > irked Dell isn't more forthcoming with documentation. I cannot give docs, but I can retype the docs into code or xml files. What, specifically, were you looking for? I intend to make an XML file of all of the token name, id, and description mappings within the next couple of weeks. This should pretty much document all of the token mappings. Next thing would be to do something for the SMI calls. What I will do there is basically just put a big table and make a C-API available for every SMI call we support. > Given that why not resubmit the kernel driver when the userspace > becomes usable for people without them having to use MonsterApp from > Dell? Well, there are three different groups involved here. I didn't write the dcdbas code, Doug did. I just reviewed it and decided it would be nice to implement in libsmbios. I started work on the libsmbios side of things this weekend. I didn't know that Doug had reposted the driver to linux-kernel until about 4pm this afternoon. :-( Libsmbios isn't the only user of dcdbas. That is the third group. (MonsterApp, so nicely put...) When I found out Doug reposted the driver, I went into overdrive trying to finish out libsmbios. But, basically, libsmbios is a one-person project, and that person would be me. And I have a "real" job to do besides just libsmbios. :-) The best I can guarantee is next week, although if my manager is understanding, I may have it done sooner. :-) > > > Aside from that, for the most part, the only thing SMI ever does is > > pass buffers back and forth. > > I meant to ask; does this have horrible latency or nasties like lots > of laptop SMM stuff? That really depends, I guess. The hugely horrible laptop SMM stuff mostly has to do with the battery gauge. The reason that the battery stuff takes so long is that they basically do an entire current measurement and computation of the battery each time the SMI is called and do not (and pretty much cannot) cache anything from call to call. Compounding things, they have to talk to the battery over a very slow serial link. (as related to me by a former BIOS engineer) I haven't done any measurements on servers, but I bet that most of it isn't anywhere near as bad as the laptop stuff. -- Michael