Dell Data Vault WMI Driver On Deck For Linux 6.2

Being queued up via the x86 platform driver's "for-next" branch ahead of the Linux 6.2 cycle is the dell-wmi-ddv driver, which is for exposing the WMI interface of the Dell Data Vault (DDV).

While Dell does regularly contribute to upstream Linux projects, as explained in that prior Phoronix article from September, this Dell Data Vault WMI driver was developed by an independent developer (Armin Wolf) with reverse engineering of the interfaces.

The dell-wmi-ddv in its current form allows reading of current temperature and ePPID identification data of ACPI batteries for supported Dell laptops. For help in debugging and future driver features, via DebugFS this driver also allows reading fan sensor and thermal information buffers.

For those with modern Dell hardware and interested in what the Dell Data Vault WMI interface has to offer, this new driver has been queued into the platform-drivers-x86.git for-next branch ahead of next month's Linux 6.2 merge window.