linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH RFC] x86: check for and defend against BIOS memory corruption

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Date:	Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:13:34 +0200
From:	"Rafał Miłecki" <zajec5@...il.com>
To:	"Alan Cox" <alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>
Cc:	"Jeremy Fitzhardinge" <jeremy@...p.org>,
	"Yinghai Lu" <yhlu.kernel@...il.com>,
	"Ingo Molnar" <mingo@...e.hu>,
	"Alan Jenkins" <alan-jenkins@...fmail.co.uk>,
	"Hugh Dickens" <hugh@...itas.com>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
	"Linux Kernel Mailing List" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH RFC] x86: check for and defend against BIOS memory corruption

Out of current discussion I tried using s2ram on patched kernel (I did
not try s2ram earlier, my problem was (un)plugging HDMI - some ACPI
code probably).

Corruption output is quite huge, I attached it to bug report:
http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11237
http://bugzilla.kernel.org/attachment.cgi?id=17526

I do not know much about current discussion and fact if checking for
corruption should be enabled by default.

However, please note that end-user will not able to diagnose that
Linux doesn't work on his machine because of less-or-more broken BIOS.
He will not get to know that he needs to enable
bios_corruption_check=1 and edit grub to make it default.

I understand that disabling chunk of RAM on every, even not affected,
machine is far from perfect, but we have to remember about not
advanced end-users.

-- 
Rafał Miłecki