Re: XEN CD --> USB stick

[Nivedita Singhvi <nsnix@comcast.net>]

Mark Williamson wrote:

> Harry's being doing some good work on the 2.6 port but it's not completed yet.

One of the reasons we consider this important is because
the cdrom drive on our Bladecenter platforms is a USB
device, and we would like to resolve the various issues
required to use it from the guest OS. This not only
covers the USB support in some form, but also issues
with removable media, installing software on the guest
domains directly from CD, etc. There are currently
workarounds for some of these requirements, but I'd
really like to see 2.6 USB working and stable.

> Devices that don't virtualise well just don't work, it doesn't impact 
> stability.  I doubt there's any way of identifying these devices other than 
> by trying them out (depends whether the manufacturer put a stupid chip in the 
> device).

We have some testing on our roadmap, but given the sheer
range of USB devices and issues related to them, it will
be a matter of having people test their own hw. To that
end, it will help to have some code in the tree for
people to play around with earlier rather than later,
because it will help stabilize the code to get a larger
group of people testing it..

> Bottom line: people who want to play with USB virtualisation should be able to 
> do so successfully but should bear in mind it's experimental.

So I did like Ian's idea of putting whatever's working, no
matter how minimal (with a LOT of caveats and warnings),
into the tree. You and Harry are the best judge of when it's
ready to go in, of course, but I would appreciate an early
push :)..

thanks,
Nivedita



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