Re: [Qemu-devel] E820 (Re: [v4 PATCH 00/12] SMBIOS: build full tables in QEMU)

[Gabriel L. Somlo]

On Wed, Apr 02, 2014 at 05:07:05PM +0200, Gerd Hoffmann wrote:
>   Hi,
> 
> > If qemu gives OVMF a complete, concatenated dump of all tables, I'll
> > have to split that up into individual tables, and install those one by one.
> 
> I feel like I should have a look at how coreboot handles this for an
> additional data point ...

Sounds like maybe I also need to take a step back and try this stuff
out (at least with Linux and Windows), for some first hand experience
with how smbios tables are handled outside SeaBIOS... :)

Speaking of, I *thought* I had a vague idea of how all this stuff fits
together, but it turns out I don't... There's

        - OVMF
          http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/tianocore/index.php?title=OVMF

        - TianoCore
          http://www.coreboot.org/TianoCore

        - coreboot
          http://www.coreboot.org/Download_coreboot

Apparently, TianoCore is a "coreboot payload", which in my mind is
somewhat analogous to bootloader "stages" chaining off each other,
but then what's OVMF (the only thing I actually tried, which only
works on piix) ? Is it a packaged bundle of coreboot+tianocore ?
or something else entirely ?

What if I want to send a patch against this whole "thing" to
facilitate integration with the new smbios table generator in qemu ?

Which git repos do I need to have around, and how to stitch them
together to obtain "the thing you use as an argument to -bios in lieu
of SeaBIOS", when it comes time to test ? :)

I'm guessing this is a FAQ, so if there's one place that explains it
all, please point me at it. Otherwise I'd be happy to write it up once
I get my head wrapped around it :)

Thanks much,
--Gabriel

PS. Coreboot says it supports q35 as well
    (http://www.coreboot.org/Supported_Motherboards)
    so if my guess that "coreboot + tianocore == ovmf" is true, then
    it must be tianocore that doesn't yet support q35 ?