[Qemu-devel] Re: Killing KQEMU

[Paul Brook <paul@codesourcery.com>]

>> osdep.c:/* FIXME: This file should be target independent. However it has
>> kqemu vl.c:    /* FIXME: This is a nasty hack because kqemu can't cope
>> with dynamic cpu-common.h: #ifdef CONFIG_KQEMU /* FIXME: This is wrong. 
>> */
>> exec.c: #elif defined(TARGET_X86_64) && !defined(CONFIG_KQEMU)
>
>These are fairly small annoyances, no?  I'm assuming they are, since they
>exist at all, considering the frustration evident in:

They're horrid hacks that I only reluctantly created in the first place. 
Limiting guest physical memory to 4G is a fairly serous issue. Requiring the 
user specify how much ram they require upfront will not be acceptable once we 
have machine config files.

>> Or let me put it another way: At some point I'll get fed up of the
>> limitations that kqemu currently imposes, and deliberately break it.
>
>I would hope that anyone who deliberately breaks kqemu support would be
>kind enough to post that fact to the mailing list

Sure, but this is actually part of my point.  If noone cares enough to 
track+test the development branch, then it just proves how little anyone 
actually cares about kqemu.

> > As I've said before, if you're serious about maintaining kqemu you
> > probably need to get it integrated into mainstream kernels. Without this
> > a large portion of the relevant communities simply aren't going to care.
>
> According to other threads on this list, it would appear that getting
> KQEMU into the kernel is often thought of as impossible, or "would never
> happen."

In its current form that's probably true. It may effectively require a 
complete rewrite.

OTOH kqemu has some fairly serious bugs, and may need a complete rewrite to 
fix those bugs.  IMHO current kqemu is effectively unsupportable[1] for any 
serious use, which is one of the reasons I'm not concerned about it going away 
in the near future.

Paul

[1] Unsupportable == I'm not letting it anywhere near my production systems. 
When it breaks you keep both pieces, and it's unlikely anyone knows how to 
glue them back together again.