[SeaBIOS] [Qemu-devel] KVM call agenda for 2013-05-28

[Laszlo Ersek]

On 05/30/13 18:20, Jordan Justen wrote:

> I think ACPI table generation lives in firmware on real products,
> because on real products the firmware is the point that best
> understands the actual hardware layout for the machine. In qemu, I
> would say that qemu best knows the hardware layout, given that the
> firmware is generally a slightly separate project from qemu.
> 
> I don't think adding a coreboot layer into the picture helps, if it
> brings along the coreboot payload boot interface as a requirement.
> 
> Then again, I don't really understand how firmware could be swapped
> out in this case. What would -bios do? How would the coreboot ACPI
> shim layer be specified to qemu?

I guess -bios would load coreboot. Coreboot would siphon the data
necessary for ACPI table building through the current (same) fw_cfg
bottleneck, build the tables, load the boot firmware (SeaBIOS or OVMF or
something else -- not sure how to configure that), and pass down the
tables to the firmware (through a now unspecified interface -- perhaps
the tables could even be installed at this point). This could introduce
another interface (fw_cfg+something rather than just fw_cfg), but ACPI
table preparation would be concentrated in one project.

I guess.

Laszlo