Re: [PATCH] x86: alternative identifier for Phoenix BIOS

From: Pavel Machek
Date: Sun Nov 16 2008 - 11:52:00 EST


On Sat 2008-11-15 17:55:20, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Philipp Kohlbecher wrote:
> > My laptop (a Samsung X20) contains a Phoenix BIOS and would benefit from
> > patch 1e22436eba84edfec9c25e5a25d09062c4f91ca9 (x86: reserve low 64K on
> > AMI and Phoenix BIOS boxen).
> >
> > However, according to /sys/class/dmi/id/bios_vendor, the BIOS identifies
> > its vendor as "Phoenix Technologies LTD" (sans the comma).
>
> Given that AMI and Phoenix combined is something like 80% of the BIOS
> market, if not more, it might simply be easier to make it unconditional,
> or make it a whitelist instead.

Whitelist is bad:

even if bios vendor is a good boy and tests their bios with linux,
they will not notice that they corrupt low 64K (not whitelisted), and
will not fix their bios.

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