Re: [dmidecode] repository of dmidecode output ?

[Jean Delvare]

Hi Jim,

> Is there a repository of dmidecode outputs ?

Not that I am aware of. I have a nice personal collection by now
(around 60 items) but I cannot share most of them.

> Shouldnt there be ?

The DMI data alone isn't very interesting. And some of the information
found in a dmidecode output are "personal" (serial numbers, UUIDs,
possibly encoded or even clear text passwords...) so gathering raw data
raises some privacy concerns.

> fwiw, I checked the ML archives for 'Handle',
> which should have found anything like this..
> 
> Handle 0x000F
>         DMI type 32, 20 bytes.
>         System Boot Information
>                 Status: No errors detected
> 
> 
> Could we have an ML for collecting dmidecode-outputs from around the world ?

I don't have any time to invest in this, but if someone (you?) has, why
not.

> ... if all linux users were to run (something like) this once on each 
> machine ...
> 
> (
>     cat /proc/cpuinfo
>     cat /proc/meminfo
>     ...
>     dmidecode
> )  | mail -s 'dmidecode-output'   address@hidden

Why would people want to run this?

> We would have the raw data to answer various questions:
> 
> - how many BIOS vendors are in the repository / world ?
> - how many versions from each, how often do they update ?
> - is a particular 'Handle' common/rare/unique ?
> - does this 'Handle' occur on a wide range of cpus ?

These questions would only be answered relative to the subset of people
who bothered sending the data, and we have no proof that this would be
representative of the world situation. In fact, it is unlikely to be.

I don't see much interest in the specific questions above, BTW, but
that's certainly a personal point of view ;)

Put in short, setting up that kind of survey takes a lot of time if you
want it to be reliable and successful, and I just don't have that much
time for it, nor do I think the benefit is worth the investment. But
anyone can do that, if they think it's worth the effort.

-- 
Jean Delvare