Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH v3 0/5] hvmloader: Make ROM dependencies optional

[Ian Campbell <Ian.Campbell@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 2012-02-13 at 13:09 +0000, Keir Fraser wrote:
> On 13/02/2012 12:56, "Ian Campbell" <Ian.Campbell@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, 2012-02-13 at 12:51 +0000, Keir Fraser wrote:
> >> On 11/02/2012 20:39, "Julian Pidancet" <julian.pidancet@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> 
> >>> This patch set mainly allows the user to build a seabios or rombios only
> >>> version of hvmloader.
> >>> In addition, when building a seabios only hvmloader, Option ROMs like
> >>> vgabios and etherboot are no longer required, and therefore can be 
> >>> disabled
> >>> from the build. Dependency on the bcc compiler can also be avoided the
> >>> same way.
> >> 
> >> Applied, but I wonder why we still have the rombios support? Could we 
> >> switch
> >> over to seabios for 4.2 and get rid of the crufty old rombios code 
> >> entirely?
> > 
> > We still use ROMBIOS with the traditional qemu-xen tree, I think we have
> > to do that for compatibility with existing guests, for the same reason
> > as we need to continue to support that traditional qemu-xen tree.
> 
> So guests that were installed with old qemu need to always boot with old
> qemu?

That's the claim at least WRT guests like Windows where we aren't
confident in the ability to change "motherboard" under its feet.

I think we've basically just taken the conservative decision to put
qemu-xen-traditional+ROMBIOS into "deep freeze" and keep supporting them
due to lack of concrete evidence and because "deep freeze" means (or
should mean) very low effort.

If there were evidence that this kind of BIOS+motherboard upgrade
doesn't make guests unhappy then it's an easy position to undo.

Ian.



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