Re: [PATCH] - make qemu serial summagraphics settings a bitmore fluid

[Ben Thomas <bthomas@virtualiron.com>]

Hi Don,

Thanks for the info.  I was being a bit too flexible, I guess.
Let me take a look at the code and see if there's some
reasonable method to accomplish all the goals.  What I'm
thinking of here is asking for summa support on COM4, when
in fact you haven't asked for COM2 or COM3 to exist.  I'd like
to make sure that all the bases are covered appropriately.
Perhaps that's an unreasonable example, but if it can be
specified on a command line, I've found that someone
will ask for it and I'd prefer to have it covered in advance.

And, as you note, I am explictly trying to allow the case of
4 serial lines none of which have the summa protocol on them.

I'll see if I can get something put together tomorrow.

Thanks,
-b



Dugger, Donald D wrote:
> Ben-
> 
> That explains how it, you're explictly setting the serial name from the
> command line.  For the case of the Summa driver I think it's redundant
> to require the `-serial' flag.  Right now the driver is, by definition,
> a serial device and, therefore, if you specify a Summa port you are
> implicitly saying you want to reserve that serial resouce.
> Note that the serial console on port 0 is also implicitly specified,
> that was the model I was following.
> 
> I would prefer to see it that where you process the `-summ' flag you set
> the appropriate serial device name to "nul" at the same time, I think
> that's easiest for the user.
> 
> There's no need to be able to specify more than one serial port as a
> Summa device, it doesn't make sense and the rest of the code isn't set
> up to handle that any way.  I see it that there are only two options, no
> Summa or Summa on port n.  That's why I was saying you don't need an
> array, just an integer.  The integer holds -1 to indicate no Summa at
> all and the serial port number otherwise.
> 
> --
> Don Dugger
> "Censeo Toto nos in Kansa esse decisse." - D. Gale
> Donald.D.Dugger@intel.com
> Ph: (303)440-1368 


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