Re: [Qemu-devel] International Virtualization Conference

[Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>]

On Monday 09 October 2006 8:08 am, Jim C. Brown wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 09, 2006 at 12:05:02AM -0400, Rob Landley wrote:
> > > qemu is primarily a dynamic translator not a virtualizer.
> > 
> > That's an implementation detail.  The end result is running programs in a 
> > virtual environment, and qemu's system emulation has lots of virtual 
hardware 
> > it attaches to virtual busses, which it performs virtual I/O to, even 
> > simulating the delivery of virtual interrupts to signal completion of 
virtual 
> > DMA.
> > 
> > Rob
> > -- 
> > Never bet against the cheap plastic solution.
> > 
> 
> Here you are using the terms "virtual" and "emulated" interchangably. That's
> ok as long as the difference between virtualization and virtual/emulated is
> understood. 

Well, the hardware people see a huge difference.  To them one is "doing it in 
hardware" and the other is "doing it in software".

I stay on the software side, and see them both as different ways to fake an 
execution environment.  Wine fakes a windows system, qemu can fake a 
processor (and then either fake system calls for an app or fake hardware for 
a kernel).

Considering that the original goal of QEMU was "to run the Wine project on 
non-86 architectures" (see 
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/tinycc-devel/2003-03/msg00084.html )
I think making a terminology distinction between Wine and QEMU is splitting 
hairs.  (And trying to draw a line between qemu, bochs, and valgrind is 
splitting the result of that.)

> If I follow your logic, then bochs is also a good canidate for the workshop.

If you mean the way Hurd is a candidate for a workshop anywhere Linux is, 
sure.  If it's a purely academic conference where being useful doesn't enter 
into it.  (I followed Bochs and Plex86 5 years ago, but could never actually 
get them to do anything useful despite repeated attempts.  Still haven't, 
although I see Bochs is back from the dead...)

> -- 

And I'm sorry, but I find your tagline actively wrong:

> Infinite complexity begets infinite beauty.

It begets "unmaintainable" after about 5 minutes.

> Infinite precision begets infinite perfection.

You've never been micro-managed, have you?

"Perfection is reached, not when there is no longer anything to add, but when 
there is no longer anything to take away."
 - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Rob
-- 
"Perfection is reached, not when there is no longer anything to add, but when 
there is no longer anything to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery