Re: [Qemu-devel] QEmu as a Device Software Optimization tool

[Paul Sokolovsky <pmiscml@gmail.com>]

Hello Paul,

Friday, July 27, 2007, 12:25:13 PM, you wrote:

> The embedded space contains a vast number of boards, often only  
> different by what devices are use, where they are located, etc.   
> Building a new version of qemu for each board would be burdensome.   
> The hope would be that we could build a generic qemu (for an  
> architecture family), say, ppc_generic, which then read an external  
> file (which, in our case, will be generated from board description)  
> and configure itself according to that.  Further, by allowing devices
> to be loaded vi dlopen(), devices can be added after qemu has been  
> built.  This would also allow the developer to specify the exact  
> location of the device, rather than having a list of IRQ's and base  
> ports, etc.

> For the embedded world, yes, "outsiders" are certainly going to want  
> to define new platforms and more than likely, provide their own  
> custom devices.  They key is they do not need to muck with the real  
> internals of qemu, just the part that picks the bits and pieces to use.

  Funnily, this is the same argumentation as I used more than
half-year ago when there was last big discussion on the need of
flexible and generalized config file:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2006-10/msg00249.html
Then, it received rather cool response, I actually don't remember any
single vote for flexible/structural config and plugins. Well, I always
thought that just a small time will be required for more wider
audience to chime in and come back to this idea ;-).

> Oh, and if I am an outsider, then absolutely the answer is yes!, I  
> already have had the need :-)

>         -Paul

[]

-- 
Best regards,
 Paul                            mailto:pmiscml@gmail.com