Re: [External] [PATCH v2 1/3] riscv: obtain ACPI RSDP from FFI.

[Björn Töpel]

运辉崔 <cuiyunhui@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> Hi Björn,
>
> On Wed, Jul 5, 2023 at 10:43 PM Björn Töpel <bjorn@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> Jessica Clarke <jrtc27@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>>
>> > On 3 Jul 2023, at 19:58, Emil Renner Berthing <emil.renner.berthing@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> On Mon, 3 Jul 2023 at 15:33, 运辉崔 <cuiyunhui@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>> Hi drew,
>> >>>
>> >>> On Mon, Jul 3, 2023 at 9:01 PM Andrew Jones <ajones@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> (This is a reply to a non-existent cover letter.)
>> >>>
>> >>> This has been discussed many times with Ard, Please refer to :
>> >>> https://patches.linaro.org/project/linux-acpi/patch/20230426034001.16-1-cuiyunhui@xxxxxxxxxxxxx/
>> >>
>> >> Hi Yunhui,
>> >>
>> >> From that discussion it was mentioned that that arm supports 3 methods
>> >> of booting:
>> >>  direct + devicetree
>> >>  EFI + devicetree
>> >>  EFI + ACPI
>> >> ..but not
>> >>  direct + ACPI
>> >>
>> >> To me it isn't obvious from that or this thread, and since arm seems
>> >> to be doing fine without the 4th option I'm curious why that's
>> >> necessary on riscv?
>> >
>> > If anything we should be removing option 1, because that’s not a
>> > cross-OS standard (though RISC-V’s SBI direct booting is at least not
>> > tied to the OS). Any application-class platform spec is going to
>> > mandate EFI, because, whatever your thoughts of EFI are, that is *the*
>> > standard. And if you’re willing to pick up all the complexity of ACPI,
>> > what’s a bit of EFI (especially if you only go for a minimal one a la
>> > U-Boot)?
>>
>> Well said!
>>
>> Yunhui, why not simply add a minimal UEFI stub to Coreboot (like Jess
>> points out above)?
>
> In fact, in the v1 email, Coreboot's maintainer Ron has made it clear
> that Coreboot does not support EFI, and it is necessary to transmit
> firmware information through DTS on RISC-V.

It clear that Coreboot doesn't support UEFI today. We're "arguing" that
it's less work/verification adding the neccesary minimal UEFI plumbing
for Coreboot, than jumping through hoops in the kernel to work around
it.

I'm getting some UEFI FUD vibes here. I also think that parts of UEFI is
kind of ugly, but it's, as Jess says, *the* spec and honestly, a bit
what's expected (Hi CXL).

UEFI is a specification, and implementing the minimal requirements for
UEFI is not that of a big deal. Look at Alex Graf's (et al) work on
u-boot UEFI. U-boot is small/lean/open *and* manage to support enough
UEFI for ACPI.

The whole "Oh, UEFI is so bad, bloated, and closed" hand-wavery is a bit
tiring. :-(

...these last four sections is more of a beer discussion. I'll take my
"my FW is better than yours" rants elsewhere. ;-)


Björn