Hi All,

Could anyone please let me know the difference between BIOS and SMBIOS? Suppose if we need to upgarde SMBIOS versions from 2.7 to 2.8, is it possible? or this SMBIOS version depends on BIOS versions.

Could you please share your inputs?

Thanks,
Sendil

What do you want to know that's not in, say, the wikipedia article on the subject?

Hi Guru,

I couldnt see any information like, how to upgrade SMBIOS version? because even after upgrading my BIOS to latest
one, the SMBIOS version is not changing.

Thanks,
Sendil

Don't mind or respect my Guru tag. It's my number of posts, not their quality that got me that :-).

SMBIOS is System Management BIOS, I gather the first m$ attempt to stop boot viruses like form, stoned, and ping pong from making idiots of everyone who bought m$. If there's a SMBIOS for your m/b, there is not an ordinary BIOS, or m$ wouldn't allow them to be sold with windows installed.

So if you're on the latest bios version and it's crap, you have my sympathy. What's actually wrong?

My application is depends on "type 1" system information of SMBIOS. This "type 1" information is present in 2.4 to 2.7 versions of SMBIOS. One of my system having 2.8 version of SMBIOS, in that i couldnt see the "type 1" information, due to this my application is not
running. So i need to know whether "type 1" information is removed or not from SMBIOS verion 2.8. But i can see the "type 1" information
in DMTF SMBIOS version 2.8 spec. So we need to conform, whether problem is in SMBIOS or in my system.

Thanks,
Sendil

That sounds like it could be a problem.
And is the application's name a big secret, or is it something you are writing?

yes, its my own program which verifies "Manufacturer and Vendor name" in "type 1" of SMBIOS structure to allow the main application to run.
can i get dmidecode output of "SMBIOS version 2.8" or any idea how to upgarde SMBIOS version from 2.7 to 2.8.

Please provide your comments.


Thanks,
Sendil

We are a L O N G way from the question I undertook in the beginning (see post #1)

Isolate the code that is not getting you output from the particular bios and is from other BIOS, and post a new thread to 'software' including kernel, glibc, & kernel header versions. Something like

This code <paste code> returns <this> from <Manufacturer> BIOS(any version) prior to 2.8<exact version> but will not work here. Instead I get <this wrong output> My machine: <details>

SMBIOS would only be upgradeable by the system manufacture, so this would be included in a bios update. If the vendor didn't update it then they either 1. don't need to to support anything or 2. Don't want to pay the cost of their devs to update it.

I would recommend your program is able to support multiple versions of the spec, writing something that is very dependent on a single one is a bad idea since there is likely to be a substantial mix of versions out in the wild. Or you can try and gather the needed information another way, maybe kernel interfaces that does the hard work for you and reads this data. This is of course assuming that your writing a program this is to be released to the public.