Re: [Qemu-devel] steps towards deprecation of old boards and devices

[Markus Armbruster <armbru@redhat.com>]

Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com> writes:

> On 20/09/2016 13:04, Markus Armbruster wrote:
>> I'm not proposing to get rid of -serial.  I'm proposing to use it as
>> indicator of old code in need of modernization.  A properly QOMified
>> serial device should be "configurable with non-legacy means".  Devices
>> that aren't are probably not QOMified. [...]
>> 
>> > The Raspberry Pi board is probably one of the best examples.  Its only
>> > snag is that one of the devices (hw/arm/bcm2835_peripherals.c) uses
>> > serial_hds[].
>> 
>> Yes, but it uses it to configure QOMified devices, doesn't it?
>> It should be possible to configure these with non-legacy means, at least
>> in theory.
>
> The devices are QOMified, but because there is more than one you cannot
> hack their configuration with -global.

Yes.  It's a pity, and not trivial to fix.  See also Andreas's reply.

So let me rephrase: following the -serial etc. clues will lead us to
some modern devices and some that need work.  I believe it's a promising
way to find devices that need work.