linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 2/3] firmware/dmi: Report DMI Bios release

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Date:   Mon, 21 Oct 2019 16:53:21 +0200
From:   Jean Delvare <jdelvare@...e.de>
To:     "Erwan Velu" <erwanaliasr1@...il.com>
Cc:     "Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@...shcourse.ca>,
        "Erwan Velu" <e.velu@...teo.com>,
        "David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>,
        "Changbin Du" <changbin.du@...el.com>,
        "Boris Brezillon" <bbrezillon@...nel.org>,
        "Mauro Carvalho Chehab" <mchehab+samsung@...nel.org>,
        "Sumit Garg" <sumit.garg@...aro.org>,
        "Andy Shevchenko" <andriy.shevchenko@...ux.intel.com>,
        "Michal Marek" <michal.lkml@...kovi.net>,
        "Mattias Jacobsson" <2pi@....nu>,
        "Masahiro Yamada" <yamada.masahiro@...ionext.com>,
        <linux-kbuild@...r.kernel.org>, <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/3] firmware/dmi: Report DMI Bios release

On Wed, 18 Sep 2019 11:43:20 +0200, Erwan Velu wrote:
> Some vendors like HPe or Dell, encodes the release version of their BIOS

encodes -> encode

> in the "System BIOS {Major|Minor} Release" fields of Type 0.
> 
> This information is useful to know which release of the bios is actually running.
> It could be used for some quirks, debugging sessions or inventory tasks.
> 
> This patch extract these 2 fields in DMI_BIOS_MAJOR_RELEASE & DMI_BIOS_MINOR_RELEASE.
> 
> A typical output for a Dell system running the 65.27 bios is :
> 
> 	[root@...00 ~]# cat /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/bios_release_major
> 	65
> 	[root@...00 ~]# cat /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/bios_release_minor
> 	27
> 	[root@...00 ~]#

I don't think we want two fields. This adds quite some overhead, and
they are not independent from each other anyway. I'd rather have one
field with the values combined:

	[root@...00 ~]# cat /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/bios_release
	65.27
	[root@...00 ~]#

This would also be in line with how it was implemented in dmidecode. Is
there any reason to NOT go that route?

-- 
Jean Delvare
SUSE L3 Support