config language

[Eric W. Biederman]

prl-linuxbios at sychron.com writes:

> Over on etherboot-developers, there has been discussion about encoding a
> description of the available NICs in the DHCP request so that an
> appropriate image can be chained. This encodes the PCI IDs (and, IIRC
> some ISA card names).
> 
> It would be great to have a more general parseable hardware inventory
> available via DHCP (which can neatly encapsulate options for this kind
> of thing). So, whatever kind of structure you end up with, consider how
> a more general purpose tree fits in and how it can be flattened into
> DHCP encapsulated options.

This is functionality we need in the LinuxBIOS table especially
for devices that cannot be detected by the OS.  Like temperature
sensors.  This should be easy to add in the 1.1 development tree.

This is information we cannot transmit via DHCP.  A DHCP packet
is to small.  In DHCP we just need enough information to bootstrap.

On the same vein I am very tempted after those tables have
been implemented to write a version of mkelfImage that will generate
a pirq and an mptable from the LinuxBIOS table.  Then we can
remove that cruft from the LinuxBIOS.

Eric