Re: [Qemu-devel] Re: [PATCH 1/4] Add GPL bios as a submodule

[Anthony Liguori <anthony@codemonkey.ws>]

Avi Kivity wrote:
> Anthony Liguori wrote:
>>> I really prefer a relative path here, so that people can set up 
>>> mirrors on an internal server.  Also, not everyone can access the 
>>> git port.  It can be worked around, but it's much better to have 
>>> things working out of the proverbial box.
>>
>> Do you also include a way to automatically setup the relative path?  
>> Otherwise, it's a multi-step process for someone to fetch all of the 
>> git trees for building.
>
> I don't understand the question.  The relative path is set up once (in 
> .gitmodules), and that's it.

To clone kvm-kvm.git, you have to do:

[1] git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/virt/kvm/kvm-kmod.git
[2] git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/virt/kvm/kvm.git
[3] cd kvm-kmod.git
[4] git submodule update --init

For qemu.git, we'll have to repeat [2] for every ROM we include which 
will at least be 6 different repositories.  Contrast that to my patchset 
where there's always 3 steps regardless of how many ROMs we include.

>>
>> We have a lot of ROMs, so this is potentially very undesirable.  
>> People can always make local changes to the .gitmodules file.
>
> Not if they're a mirror.

The normal course of usage will not involve doing a git submodule update 
in QEMU.  The only folks who really need to do this are maintainers or 
people doing ROM development/testing.  I don't think I'm that worried 
about mirrors considering the target audience.

This is different than kvm-kmod whereas all users must do git submodule 
updates.

>>> Having said all that, I'd rather see seabios here.  Sure, it will 
>>> take us time to add missing features, if any, but life will be much 
>>> more pleasant afterwards.  We should reduce our ties to the bochs 
>>> bios, not tighten them.
>>
>> Actually, I want to include seabios in here too and install it by 
>> default.
>>
>> There's already a -bios option that can be used to change the bios 
>> file name.  After some basic testing, we can decide whether we should 
>> change the default bios we use.  With both installed, it's easier to 
>> have people check for bugs in one verse the other.
>
> Let's only include seabios then and reject all patches to the bochs 
> bios.  If that doesn't motivate people to switch, nothing will.

I don't think it would be wise to switch the default to seabios until 
after 0.11.  I'm concerned that there hasn't been enough testing on 
non-mainstream guests.  I'd like a full release cycle worth of testing.

The gcc 4.1+ requirement is tough too.  One of the values of switching 
to seabios was moving to a more common toolchain (bcc=>gcc).  Having new 
tool chain restricts seems a little unfortunate.

Regards,

Anthony Liguori