Simple Firmware Interface being deprecated

[Laura Abbott]

https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/[e-mail]/

menuconfig SFI
         bool "SFI (Simple Firmware Interface) Support"
         ---help---
         The Simple Firmware Interface (SFI) provides a lightweight method
         for platform firmware to pass information to the operating system
         via static tables in memory.  Kernel SFI support is required to
         boot on SFI-only platforms.  Currently, all SFI-only platforms are
         based on the 2nd generation Intel Atom processor platform,
         code-named Moorestown.

         For more information, see http://simplefirmware.org

         Say 'Y' here to enable the kernel to boot on SFI-only platforms.

I have no idea how common this is but Fedora does enable this option.
If you are interested in salvaging this, please speak up!

Thanks,
Laura

[Peter Robinson]

On Mon, Aug 26, 2019 at 9:27 PM Laura Abbott <labbott(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/[e-mail]/
>
>  menuconfig SFI
>           bool "SFI (Simple Firmware Interface) Support"
>           ---help---
>           The Simple Firmware Interface (SFI) provides a lightweight method
>           for platform firmware to pass information to the operating system
>           via static tables in memory.  Kernel SFI support is required to
>           boot on SFI-only platforms.  Currently, all SFI-only platforms are
>           based on the 2nd generation Intel Atom processor platform,
>           code-named Moorestown.
>
>           For more information, see http://simplefirmware.org
>
>           Say 'Y' here to enable the kernel to boot on SFI-only platforms.
>
>  I have no idea how common this is but Fedora does enable this option.
>  If you are interested in salvaging this, please speak up! 
Grepping config and the kernel it seems Moorestown is the Intel MID
platform and we explicitly disable X86_INTEL_MID so I'm not sure it's
a problem.

P

[Hans de Goede]

Hi,

On 27-08-19 09:14, Peter Robinson wrote:
>  On Mon, Aug 26, 2019 at 9:27 PM Laura Abbott
> <labbott(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
> >
> > https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/[e-mail]/
> >
> > menuconfig SFI
> >           bool "SFI (Simple Firmware Interface) Support"
> >           ---help---
> >           The Simple Firmware Interface (SFI) provides a lightweight method
> >           for platform firmware to pass information to the operating system
> >           via static tables in memory.  Kernel SFI support is required to
> >           boot on SFI-only platforms.  Currently, all SFI-only platforms are
> >           based on the 2nd generation Intel Atom processor platform,
> >           code-named Moorestown.
> >
> >           For more information, see http://simplefirmware.org
> >
> >           Say 'Y' here to enable the kernel to boot on SFI-only platforms.
> >
> > I have no idea how common this is but Fedora does enable this option.
> > If you are interested in salvaging this, please speak up!
>  
>  Grepping config and the kernel it seems Moorestown is the Intel MID
>  platform and we explicitly disable X86_INTEL_MID so I'm not sure it's
>  a problem. 
Yeah I'm pretty sure this is just for the Intel X86 "phone" SoCs which
never went anywhere. As you know I've spend a lot of (spare) time on
improving support for Intel Atom based hw (mainly Bay Trail and Cherry
Trail tablets) and even I don't care for the phone chips, for one exactly
because of SFI, instead of coming with EFI these phones come with some
frankenstein firmware AFAIK, I never even bothered getting one to try
and make it boot mainline ...

TL;DR: I do not think this will missed, actually I think it should be
fine to disable it in the Fedora kernels right away. I've just disabled
it for the builds which I do from my personal kernel tree. It does not
seem to affect any other Kconfig options.

Regards,

Hans

[Laura Abbott]

On 8/27/19 8:46 AM, Hans de Goede wrote:
>  Hi,
>  
>  On 27-08-19 09:14, Peter Robinson wrote:
> > On Mon, Aug 26, 2019 at 9:27 PM Laura Abbott <labbott(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
> >>
> >> https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/[e-mail]/
> >>
> >> menuconfig SFI
> >>           bool "SFI (Simple Firmware Interface) Support"
> >>           ---help---
> >>           The Simple Firmware Interface (SFI) provides a lightweight method
> >>           for platform firmware to pass information to the operating system
> >>           via static tables in memory.  Kernel SFI support is required to
> >>           boot on SFI-only platforms.  Currently, all SFI-only platforms are
> >>           based on the 2nd generation Intel Atom processor platform,
> >>           code-named Moorestown.
> >>
> >>           For more information, see http://simplefirmware.org
> >>
> >>           Say 'Y' here to enable the kernel to boot on SFI-only
> platforms.
> >>
> >> I have no idea how common this is but Fedora does enable this option.
> >> If you are interested in salvaging this, please speak up!
> >
> > Grepping config and the kernel it seems Moorestown is the Intel MID
> > platform and we explicitly disable X86_INTEL_MID so I'm not sure it's
> > a problem.
>  
>  Yeah I'm pretty sure this is just for the Intel X86 "phone" SoCs which
>  never went anywhere. As you know I've spend a lot of (spare) time on
>  improving support for Intel Atom based hw (mainly Bay Trail and Cherry
>  Trail tablets) and even I don't care for the phone chips, for one exactly
>  because of SFI, instead of coming with EFI these phones come with some
>  frankenstein firmware AFAIK, I never even bothered getting one to try
>  and make it boot mainline ...
>  
>  TL;DR: I do not think this will missed, actually I think it should be
>  fine to disable it in the Fedora kernels right away. I've just disabled
>  it for the builds which I do from my personal kernel tree. It does not
>  seem to affect any other Kconfig options.
>  
>  Regards,
>  
>  Hans
>   
Ah the x86 phone. Such dreams. Thanks for the confirmation Peter and Hans.
I'm planning on dropping a bunch of stuff after 5.3 releases so I'll turn it
off in rawhide there.

Laura