Using a custom DSDT with Fedora

[Matt Domsch]

On Mon, Oct 09, 2006 at 05:31:30PM +0200, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> > Further, if a vendor has an updated BIOS and it's suitable for
> > redistribution in Fedora, why can't we include that BIOS image and ask
> > the user if he wants to flash his BIOS?
> 
> we don't need to. Dell has a nice yum repo for this (vendor neutral);
> that is much more the right approach than including stuff on a CD

Arjan and Peter both mentioned this, so let me give the pointer.
http://fwupdate.com/.  Latest BIOS for 216 Dell systems and
instructions for how to use it.

> > hooks into, for example, HAL and provides the implementation for an
> > UpdateFirmware() method.
> 
> that btw is really really hard as general thing. Only one or two vendors
> have linux flash tools and usually it's mobo specific even. get the
> wrong one and you have a brick

The firmware-tools project (the software behind fwupdate.com) is
designed to explicitly be a plugin framework only.  To update Dell
systems, you install firmware-addon-dell which makes its functions
available.  Likewise, we've talked with other major hardware vendors
about them providing their own firmware-addon-$vendor.  This is the
right approach, so no one group is expected to know all the nuances of
all types of systems ever produced anywhere.  If your vendor doesn't
have a plugin yet, politely ask them.

As for installing updated DSDTs at runtime, while it's a great
debugging tool and fun for developers, I don't think it's good end user
solution, and isn't long-term sustainable by the Linux developer
community, exactly because they lack some knowledge about the system
they're patching.  I agree that working with the system providers is
the right solution.  To that end, if you've got serious issues with a
Dell system, you can always post to linux-poweredge at dell.com or
linux-precision at dell.com with the details and your proposed fix, and
we'll make sure it gets in front of the right BIOS teams.  (Even if
it's a desktop or notebook.)  (Subscribe at http://lists.us.dell.com
to post.)  And yes, our test teams are using Arjan's firmware test kit
now - thanks Arjan!

Thanks,
Matt

-- 
Matt Domsch
Software Architect
Dell Linux Solutions linux.dell.com & www.dell.com/linux
Linux on Dell mailing lists @ http://lists.us.dell.com