Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 0/2] sun4m: Implement Sun CG3 framebuffer for QEMU

[Mark Cave-Ayland <mark.cave-ayland@ilande.co.uk>]

On 15/10/13 21:19, Mark Cave-Ayland wrote:

> This patchset follows on from the previous "Add FCode ROM for TCX framebuffer"
> patch and provides QEMU with an implementation of the Sun CG3 8-bit
> framebuffer. It is based upon Bob Breuer's original work which has been
> rebased onto git master, and is now capable of running with an OpenBIOS CG3
> FCode ROM instead of requiring copies of proprietary Sun ROMs.
>
> Note this patch has been around for a month or so but has been waiting for the
> updated OpenBIOS images to be included in QEMU. Therefore while it has not yet
> been reviewed, it is a reasonably simple and self-contained patchset
> and has been updated to reflect the comments received from the associated
> "Add FCode ROM for TCX framebuffer" patch. For this reason, I feel that both
> these patches are a candidate for 1.7.
>
> The motivation behind this patch is that older operating systems such as
> Debian Woody and Solaris (running OpenWindows) do not contain drivers for the
> TCX framebuffer and as a result currently cannot run in graphical mode. The
> screenshots linked below show qemu-system-sparc successfully running both
> Debian Woody and the Solaris 8 installer in graphical mode during testing:
>
> http://www.ilande.co.uk/tmp/debian-woody.png
> http://www.ilande.co.uk/tmp/sol8-1.png
> http://www.ilande.co.uk/tmp/sol8-2.png
>
> The CG3 framebuffer is selected by passing -vga cg3 on the command line to
> qemu-system-sparc. If either -vga tcx is specified (or the -vga argument is
> omitted) then qemu-system-sparc defaults to using the existing TCX
> framebuffer to maintain compatibility.
>
> Signed-off-by: Mark Cave-Ayland<mark.cave-ayland@ilande.co.uk>

Hi Anthony,

Do you think it is possible that this (and the associated TCX 
framebuffer patch also mentioned above) could be applied for 1.7?

While I've had no review from Blue (no news is good news?), I feel that 
the patch itself is in reasonably good shape and has been on my computer 
in various forms for several months now. Peter reviewed the associated 
"Add FCode ROM for TCX framebuffer" patch, and I resubmitted a revised 
version back to the list based upon his comments a while back.

I then made the same stylistic changes to the CG3 patch and posted it 
above just in time for the soft feature freeze for review. Peter has 
further commented on this patch, but didn't have any objections AFAICT. 
Both patches are fine according to checkpatch, and if any issues are 
found then I'm happy to iron them out before the 1.7 release.

I realise that SPARC is not one of the more popular architectures these 
days, however myself, Artyom and Bob still receive personal emails from 
people who are interested in QEMU's ability to run Solaris under 
emulation (either to replace aging hardware or provide resilience). On 
the plus side, given that there are fewer users and the fact that the 
patch preserves using TCX as the default, then the risk of side-effects 
from these two patches should be extremely minimal.


ATB,

Mark.