[SeaBIOS] seabios fails to build with current IASL

[Gerd Hoffmann]

On Sun, Jul 01, 2018 at 08:33:28AM +0300, Michael Tokarev wrote:
> 01.07.2018 04:25, Kevin O'Connor wrote:
> > On Sat, Jun 30, 2018 at 11:28:07AM +0300, Michael Tokarev wrote:
> >> Here's the debian bugreport
> >>  https://bugs.debian.org/901462
> >> with the patch.
> > 
> > I'm a little confused - the SeaBIOS build doesn't call iasl by
> > default.  It hasn't for quite some time (since commit 4373afae).
> 
> Yes, it doesn't call iasl when the pre-compiled acpi tables are
> used. But it does that when the tables are missing or the source
> is modified, and these tables can't be built using recent iasl.
> 
> My message is a bit confusing indeed, the default tarball is
> buildable and it does not require iasl to build seabios. It is
> only a problem when building the tables.

Hmm, the tables are needed for qemu 1.3 + older only.
Maybe we should flip the default for ACPI_DSDT from y to n?

> (A side note - this issue has been found on Debian, which follows
> DFSG - Debian Free Software Guidelines - which, in turn, requires
> that every piece of software shipped in Debian must be modifieable
> and compilable. One of the side effects of this is that we disallow
> any pre-compiled stuff - executables, object files, and these .hex
> files too - we ensure all this is built during package build time
> from actual editable source files).

The prebuild tables are there exactly to sidestep any iasl version
dependencies.  We had iasl trouble in the past (IIRC that was newer
iasl generating aml opcodes not supported by older windows versions),
and keeping up the tables which are legacy only and not expected to
ever change didn't look like being worth it.  So we added tables build
with a known-good iasl version to the repo.  I think you can find the
full story in the commit log.

If you don't want use the prebuilt tables I think the sane options are
(a) use a older iasl compiler, or (b) flip ACPI_DSDT to "n" and drop
support for qemu 1.3 + older.

cheers,
  Gerd