with qemu-2.0.x the command line options: -bios seabios.1.7.3mod.bin -smbios type=0,vendor=... -smbios type=1,manufacturer=... worked fine. but with qemu-2.1.1 the smbios type 0 and type 1 settings are no longer working. dmidecode in the guest no longer prints the type 0/1 vendor,version,product,serial,release variables set by the qemu command line options.
w/qemu-2.1.2, i can't reproduce i'm not using custom -bios, but i tested this one flag: -smbios type=1,manufacturer=meeee and dmidecode shows: Handle 0x0100, DMI type 1, 27 bytes System Information Manufacturer: meeee
I know that it works with a default bios (I think this qemu integrated bios is a seabios-1.7.5). But in my scenario where I want/need to emulate my old crashed lenovo thinkpad I need a patched seabios (version 1.7.3) to integrate the SLIC and other tables into the seabios. The concerning patch does not work with newer seabios versions so I used the patched version of seabios for acpi-table integration (-bios seabios.1.7.3mod.bin) and the smbios command line parameters for the (other) smbios table values. With qemu-2.0.x everything worked by 'somehow merging' the bios blob with the smbios params (maybe this was only a side effect). But with qemu-2.1 the behaviour changed. The bios from the -bios command line parameter is definitely loaded but neither smbios type=0 nor type=1 values will take effect. If it's not allowed to use -bios together with -smbios .... then it should be mentioned in the man page/docs. but then I need an alternate solution. I already tried qemu's acpitable parameter as work around but up to now without success.
(In reply to Jochen Schlick from comment #2) that level of detail is probably best sorted out on the qemu mailing lists as they'll know the expectations of the lower level code
with app-emulation/qemu-2.2.1 everything works 'nearly' out of the box (no specific patched seabios is needed). I'm now able to run my OEM vista again. It works with a combination of smbios and acpitable parameters qemu-x86_64 .... \ -smbios type=0,vendor=YYYYY,version=XXXX,date=12/01/2008,release=5.13 \ -smbios type=1,manufacturer=YYYYY,product=XXXXX,version="YYYYYY YY",serial=SSSSSSS,uuid=UUUUUUUU,sku=SKU,family="YYYYYYY YY" \ -smbios type=2,manufacturer=YYYYY,product=PPPPP,version="YYYYYY ABCDE",serial=11111111111111111,asset=ATN222222222222222,location=MIDDLE \ -smbios type=3,manufacturer=YYYYY,version="YYYYYYY YY" \ -acpitable file=./slic.dat \ -acpitable file=./oemb.dat \
