Re: [PATCH v18 00/18] KVM RISC-V Support

Palmer Dabbelt
2021-05-21T18:08:18Z

On Fri, 21 May 2021 10:47:51 PDT (-0700), Greg KH wrote:
> On Fri, May 21, 2021 at 07:21:12PM +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
>> On 21/05/21 19:13, Palmer Dabbelt wrote:
>> > >
>> >
>> > I don't view this code as being in a state where it can be
>> > maintained, at least to the standards we generally set within the
>> > kernel. The ISA extension in question is still subject to change, it
>> > says so right at the top of the H extension <https://github.com/riscv/riscv-isa-manual/blob/master/src/hypervisor.tex#L4>
>> >
>> > {\bf Warning! This draft specification may change before being
>> > accepted as standard by the RISC-V Foundation.}
>>
>> To give a complete picture, the last three relevant changes have been in
>> August 2019, November 2019 and May 2020. It seems pretty frozen to me.
>>
>> In any case, I think it's clear from the experience with Android that
>> the acceptance policy cannot succeed. The only thing that such a policy
>> guarantees, is that vendors will use more out-of-tree code. Keeping a
>> fully-developed feature out-of-tree for years is not how Linux is run.
>>
>> > I'm not sure where exactly the line for real hardware is, but for
>> > something like this it would at least involve some chip that is
>> > widely availiable and needs the H extension to be useful
>>
>> Anup said that "quite a few people have already implemented RISC-V
>> H-extension in hardware as well and KVM RISC-V works on real HW as well".
>> Those people would benefit from having KVM in the Linus tree.
>
> Great, but is this really true? If so, what hardware has this? I have
> a new RISC-V device right here next to me, what would I need to do to
> see if this is supported in it or not?

You can probe the misa register, it should have the H bit set if it
supports the H extension.

> If this isn't in any hardware that anyone outside of
> internal-to-company-prototypes, then let's wait until it really is in a
> device that people can test this code on.
>
> What's the rush to get this merged now if no one can use it?
>
> thanks,
>
> greg k-h