Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH for-4.8] docs: document ACPI usage in PVHv2 guests

[George Dunlap <george.dunlap@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 03/11/16 15:55, Jan Beulich wrote:
>>>> On 03.11.16 at 16:38, <roger.pau@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> On Thu, Nov 03, 2016 at 07:06:14AM -0600, Jan Beulich wrote:
>>>>>> On 03.11.16 at 13:19, <roger.pau@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>> --- a/docs/misc/hvmlite.markdown
>>>> +++ b/docs/misc/hvmlite.markdown
>>>> @@ -64,3 +64,14 @@ The following VCPU hypercalls can be used in order to 
>> bring up secondary vCPUs:
>>>>   * `VCPUOP_down` is used to bring down a vCPU.
>>>>  
>>>>   * `VCPUOP_is_up` is used to scan the number of available vCPUs.
>>>> +
>>>> +## Hardware description ##
>>>> +
>>>> +PVHv2 guests that have access to hardware (either emulated or real) will 
>>>> also
>>>> +have ACPI tables with the description of the hardware that's available to 
>>>> the
>>>> +guest. This applies to both privileged and unprivileged guests. A hint of
>>>> +the position of the RSDP in memory (if present) can be fetched from the 
>>>> start
>>>> +info structure that's passed at boot time (field rsdp_paddr).
>>>
>>> Why "hint"?
>>
>> Hm, maybe that's not the best word? (my English is clearly lacking 
>> sometimes). What I meant is that this is a pointer to the RSDP. I've 
>> probably used "hint" here because in FreeBSD the position of the RSDP is 
>> passed from the loader to the kernel as "hint.acpi.0.rsdp". Let me know if 
>> you would like me to rephrase this.
> 
> I indeed think this should be re-worded. After all that start info field
> is iirc the _only_ way to get the pointer.

In plain English, a "hint" is a bit of information that is meant to help
you reach the answer to a puzzle more quickly; but without which you
should (in theory) be able to solve it yourself.  If a student was
struggling with a mathematical proof, the teacher might say something
like, "Here's a hint: x is never negative." (Or whatever.)  Or if you
had hidden something for someone to find, you might say, "Here's a hint:
It's near something blue."

But if you wanted to come visit me, I couldn't say, "Here's a hint: My
address is 123 Easy St", because I certainly wasn't expecting you to
figure out what my address was by doing a brute-force search. :-)

 -George

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