Version 3.5 of dmidecode has just been released. It includes support for 5 new HPE-specific structure types, a new mode where quirks are disabled, a few fixes, and several hardening changes.
Version 3.3 of dmidecode has just been released. It partially supports version 3.3.0 of the SMBIOS specification, essentially new enumerated values for recent hardware. It also features portability fixes for non-x86 architectures, new keys to the -s option, as well as several bug fixes and minor improvements. Type 44 structure isn't supported yet.
Version 3.2 of dmidecode has just been released. It supports version 3.2.0 of the SMBIOS specification, which includes new enumerated values for recent hardware, as well as NVDIMM support. It features a new command line option to query structures by their handle and support for Redfish management controllers.
Version 3.1 of dmidecode has just been released. It supports version 3.1.1 of the SMBIOS specification, which includes new enumerated values for recent hardware and a new structure type (TPM Device.) It features a new command line option to query OEM strings, and includes one year and a half worth of bug fixes, improvements and cleanups.
Version 3.0 of dmidecode has just been released. It supports the version 3.0.0 of the SMBIOS specification, which includes new enumerated values for recent hardware and a new 64-bit entry point format. It also supports the new sysfs interface introduced in Linux kernel v4.2 as an alternative to reading from /dev/mem.
SMBIOS v3.0.0 was published a few months ago, updated dmidecode will follow. Initial support is already available in CVS.
Anton has been maintaining dmidecode for 5 years. Now he decided to move to other projects, so I will be taking over that role again. I would like to thank Anton for his good work. His dedication to the project gave me the opportunity to work on other topics during that time, and I am back with a fresh mind.
Today, dmidecode 2.12 is released. Now, the updated dmidecode offers support for SMBIOS 2.8.0, which includes new enumerated values for recent hardware.
SMBIOS v2.8.0* was published, updated dmidecode will follow.
Today, dmidecode 2.11 is released. Now, the updated dmidecode offers support for SMBIOS 2.7, which includes new enumerated values for recent hardware, UEFI support and virtual machine flags to BIOS characteristics, as well as limited support for the Management Controller Host Interface. This release also contains various fixes that address stability.
Anton Arapov has volunteered to become the new maintainer of dmidecode. Thanks Anton! I will stay around for a while to ensure a smooth transition.
I have been maintaining dmidecode for over 6 years now. Officially, since April 2003. In practice, even earlier than that. I first established a home for the project on Savannah, with version 1.8 being released in January 2003. Then I reorganized the code significantly, leading to the code base as we know it today (including the split of non-DMI data reporting to biosdecode), which was released as dmidecode 2.0 in March 2003.
In the following years, changes have been smaller. I essentially worked on support of new versions of the SMBIOS specification and on portability. The result is pretty good, with dmidecode now running on 3 architectures (i386, x86-64 and ia64), 4 operating system families (Linux, BSD, BeOS and Solaris) plus Cygwin, and being now incorporated into most popular Linux and BSD distributions.
Then the next big change was the command line interface, introduced in version 2.7 and improved since. This made dmidecode a valuable tool for applications to rely on.
Now the time has come for me to pass over the maintenance work to someone else. I no longer have the time to do it myself, and admittedly after that long, motivation has also dropped significantly.
So, this is a call for a new maintainer for the dmidecode project. If you are interested, please reply. You'll need to create yourself an account on Savannah, so that I can add you as a member of the project. I will make sure we have a reasonable transition period, and I plan to keep lurking on the dmidecode-devel mailing list for some more time.
Dmidecode is written in C, with a very simple Makefile, and manual pages. The code is reasonably clean by now, and pretty small and simple too, with a total of 5840 lines of code (counting comments). So it really shouldn't be difficult for anyone with average C skills to get into it. If you are looking for a small project to contribute to, this may be a good opportunity, please think about it!
Version 2.10 of dmidecode has just been released. It supports the version 2.6 of the SMBIOS specification, which includes new enumerated values for recent hardware, as well as bus address for system slots and a new entry type for on-board devices. The possibility to dump the SMBIOS table to a small binary file, and to read the SMBIOS table back from such binary files, has been added.
Version 2.9 of dmidecode has just been released. It supports the version 2.5 of the SMBIOS specification, which includes new enumerated values for recent hardware, as well as CPU core and thread count reporting. Some HP-specific entries are now decoded. The support of Intel-based Macintosh and IA-64 machines was improved.
Note that the product name lookup table that was included in vpddecode has been dropped, because it was unreliable and hard to maintain.
Version 2.8 of dmidecode has just been released. It adds a new command line interface and many BIOS IDs to vpddecode, and a few new --string options to dmidecode.
Version 2.7 of dmidecode has just been released. It adds a new command line interface to dmidecode (and to vpdddecode to a lesser extent.) For example, it is now possible to limit the output of dmidecode to a given DMI type, or to extract a single string from the DMI table. The documentation has been updated accordingly.
Note that the default output of dmidecode was slightly modified to be more easily readable by humans. This might break tools parsing its output. Such tools may benefit from the new command line interface, although it shouldn't be considered stable until the next version, as it may evolve depending on the feedback I receive.
I plan to release dmidecode 2.7 by the beginning of August, in two weeks or so. I would appreciate if people good give some testing to the current CVS so as to make sure I did not introduce any regression since the previous release. The most significant improvement is the new, complete command line interface.
Version 2.6 of dmidecode has just been released. It fixes a 2 GB memory limit bug that had been (re)introduced in version 2.5. Basic command-line handling has been implemented, and documentation has been updated accordingly. BeOS and Cygwin are now supported.
A new mailing-list named dmidecode-devel has been created. This is a subscriber-only list, intended for people interested in the past, present and future developments of dmidecode and associated tools.
Version 2.5 of dmidecode has just been released. It is mainly a maintenance release, with code cleanups, compatibility fixes and documentation updates.