linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] x86/efi-bgrt: Switch all pr_err() to pr

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Date:	Sat, 30 Apr 2016 16:13:41 -0700
From:	Josh Triplett <josh@...htriplett.org>
To:	Matt Fleming <matt@...eblueprint.co.uk>
Cc:	Josh Boyer <jwboyer@...oraproject.org>,
	Môshe van der Sterre <me@...he.nl>,
	"linux-efi@...r.kernel.org" <linux-efi@...r.kernel.org>,
	"Linux-Kernel@...r. Kernel. Org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Colin Ian King <colin.king@...onical.com>,
	Ricardo Neri <ricardo.neri-calderon@...ux.intel.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] x86/efi-bgrt: Switch all pr_err() to pr_debug() for
 invalid BGRT

On Sat, Apr 30, 2016 at 11:35:14PM +0100, Matt Fleming wrote:
> (Adding Colin and Ricardo)
> 
> On Wed, 27 Apr, at 01:23:55PM, Josh Boyer wrote:
> > 
> > How is an end user supposed to see such a message and report it to the
> > people that can fix it?  They can't.  So they report it in their
> > distributions bug tracker and it either gets closed as "yeah, firmware
> > sucks" or it sits there and rots in the hope that some day someone
> > will do something.
> > 
> > I understand where you're coming from in a pre-production, development
> > environment but to be quite clear that is not the default environment
> > Linux is run in most of the time.  If this were a kernel warning, that
> > could be fixed with a kernel patch, then maybe it would be worth it.
> > It isn't though.
> 
> If the error messages in the BGRT driver make it impossible for end
> users to achieve a pretty boot experience then I agree, that is a
> kernel bug. BGRT is an exception to the usual rule about complaining
> loudly when we encounter firmware bugs simply because we're dealing
> with UIs in this case.

Fine.  What's the highest priority message that will *not* cause splash
screens to go into text mode?  With the default boot argument of
"quiet", pr_notice or pr_info should still remain hidden, right?  So,
could we make these pr_notice, rather than pr_debug?  That way they'll
at least show up in logs, even though they don't show up on the console.

> That's not to say we should give up reporting these kinds of invalid
> table issues to firmware developers altogether. There are other means
> of doing it, and comprising the wants of many end users for the
> benefit of few firmware developers (relatively) is just not sensible.
> 
> Colin, Ricardo, I haven't checked recently, are there ACPI BGRT
> validations tests in FWTS and LUV? Josh (Triplett), BITS would seem
> like a very good place to include these tests since it already has a
> bunch of ACPI table checks.

BITS doesn't, but should; I've added it to the TODO list.

- Josh Triplett