[meta-intel] [PATCH 1/1] README.hardware: Documentation of hardware features

[Tom Zanussi]

On Wed, 2014-09-24 at 10:49 -0700, nitin.a.kamble at intel.com wrote:
> From: Nitin A Kamble <nitin.a.kamble at intel.com>
> 
> Starting a new documentation file to describe the layer specific hardware
> features. At this point the intel-ucode machine feature is described here.
> In the future more such features will be described in this file.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Nitin A Kamble <nitin.a.kamble at intel.com>
> ---
>  README.hardware | 62 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  1 file changed, 62 insertions(+)
>  create mode 100644 README.hardware
> 
> diff --git a/README.hardware b/README.hardware
> new file mode 100644

I think Darren suggested just adding to README.  I don't care either
way, but I'll let Darren ack first.


> index 0000000..ecadb5d
> --- /dev/null
> +++ b/README.hardware
> @@ -0,0 +1,62 @@
> +                    meta-intel Layer Hardware README
> +                    ================================
> +
> +This file gives details about using the meta-intel layer with the machines
> +supported in the layer. A full list of supported reference target machines
> +can be found by looking in the following directories:
> +
> +   conf/machine/
> +   meta-*/conf/machine/
> +   meta-isg/meta-*/conf/machine/
> +
> +The information in this file is also applicable to machine such as as minnow
> +which are defined in separate layers and utilize the meta-intel layer.
> +
> +
> +Machine Features in the meta-intel layer
> +========================================
> +
> +Many machine features are available in the oecore/poky layer for BSP use.
> +The meta-intel layer makes some additional machine features available for BSPs
> +using the meta-intel layer.
> +
> +Requirements
> +------------
> +
> +The additional machine features are only available when the meta-intel layer
> +is included in the build config, and the meta-intel.inc file is included in
> +the machine configuration of the interested BSP.
> +
> +To make these features available for your machine, you will need to:
> +
> +1. have a configuration line as seen below in the bblayers.conf
> +	BBLAYERS += "<local path>/meta-intel.git"
> +2. have the following line in the machine configuration
> +	require conf/machine/include/meta-intel.inc
> +
> +Once the above requirements are met, then the machine features provided by
> +the meta-intel layer will be available for the BSP use.
> +
> +Available Machine Features
> +--------------------------
> +
> +As of now the meta-intel layer provides the following list of machine features.
> +In the future, more machine features may be available in this list.
> +
> +* intel-ucode
> +
> +These machine features can be included by listing them in the MACHINE_FEATURES variable
> +in the machine configuration file.
> +
> +Details of the Machine Features
> +-------------------------------
> +
> +* intel-ucode: This feature provides microcode updating support. Once enabled,
> +  the generated image will have complete support for updating the microcode on
> +  Intel processors. It enables microcode updating at early boot time by
> +  placing the microcode data files in the initrd image. It also puts the
> +  user land microcode updating tool iucode_tool and the microcode data
> +  file in the target images. It is highly recommended to enable the intel-code
> +  machine features for all the platforms using the Intel processors. The BSPs

This tells what the feature adds, but not really why a user might want
to add it.  BSPs never needed it before and they seemed to work fine, so
why bother adding the feature to a particular BSP? (is a question that
it would make sense to answer in the description).

Also, this patchset includes the documentation, but not the feature it's
documenting.

> +  which are highly sensitive to the target image size, may consider not
> +  enabling this feature to save the image foot print.

Also, I'd guess that a vendor who already made sure their hardware had
an upgraded BIOS wouldn't need this either.  Or hardware that wasn't
included in the microcode file, etc..

Tom