Re: [Qemu-devel] QEMU GUI

[Dan Sandberg <dan.sandberg@medsci.uu.se>]

Christian MICHON wrote:

> On 6/21/06, Fabrice Bellard <fabrice@bellard.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Concerning the QEMU GUI, my mind slightly evolved since my last posts on
>> the topic: I think that a wxWidgets GUI would be the best as it is
>> reasonnably portable and because it uses the native GUIs.
>>
>> If someone is interested, I am ready to try to include such a GUI in the
>> QEMU repository even if it is not usable yet.
>>
>
> Do you still want SDL to move out of the project ?
>
> -- 
> Christian
>
>
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Wouldn't it be a good idea to separate SDL from the actual VM-parts?

If the VM were made as library with a well-defined API that could be 
either statically linked at compile-time or dynamically linked like a 
.dll at run-time, then there could be several flavors of GUI:s for 
different purposes and target systems and all still continuing to 
support and improve the same VM-core so that the project does not fork 
into several.

Those who need no graphic output at all (perhaps using Qemu for a vitual 
server, sandbox or honeypot) wouldn't have to link SDL or anything else, 
just using the Qemu-VM with minimum overhead and dependences.
Those who want SDL just statically link the SDL-interface code at 
compile time, similar to the situation today.
Those who want to make a Windows only GUI in Delphi could choose to load 
Qemu as a DLL at run-time.
Those who want a C++ GUI use either way and Qemu can still be C-code 
only (which is probably faster, more code-efficient and more compatible 
with other programming languages than turning Qemu into a C++ class - my 
quess).
If anyone (like me) would like to try for instance OpenGL as a 
replacement for SDL and try to implement true hardware assistance for 
the graphic card emulation it would probably be easier not having to 
hack up Qemu.
One interesting flavor of GUI could be MONO which should work on most 
platforms with the same source code and cross networks and still have 
good graphics performance on any machine having decent OpenGL drivers 
(which will be the common case soon with more OpenGL-friendly X-window 
implementations being introduced).

Regards
Dan Sandberg