Re: [Xen-devel] PATCH: 0/10: Merge xenfb & xenconsoled into qemu-dm

[Mark Williamson <mark.williamson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Yes, I'd particularly like to be able get the emulated USB bus hooked up,
> but personally have no clue how to go about doing this.
>
> It gives a very nice device passthrough capability that will integrate
> extremely well with HAL & desktop session policy allowing users to assign
> their local hotplugged devices to the guest as VMWare Workstation allows.

IBM were interested in this kind of stuff too; their bladecenter has a single 
USB cdrom for a group of blades.  The drive is simply switched between them 
using a USB switcher in the blade enclosure and standard hotplug on the blade 
OS.  The ability to do the same thing *within* a blade, to different OSes 
would make management more uniform for them.

They did have someone looking at getting paravirt USB working but I'm not sure 
where that project got to.  However, if USB could easily be passed to 
paravirt guests as an emulated device it would be quite handy for some 
things.  It would be interesting to see what performance was achievable this 
way, but some high bandwidth devices like disk and network can always go 
through the usual paravirt drivers.

Cheers,
Mark

-- 
Dave: Just a question. What use is a unicyle with no seat?  And no pedals!
Mark: To answer a question with a question: What use is a skateboard?
Dave: Skateboards have wheels.
Mark: My wheel has a wheel!

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