Re: [Qemu-devel] [RFC PATCH] hw/core: expand description of null-machine

[Eduardo Habkost <ehabkost@redhat.com>]

On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 08:53:29PM +0200, Thomas Huth wrote:
> On 26.04.2018 20:44, Alex Bennée wrote:
> > 
> > Thomas Huth <thuth@redhat.com> writes:
> > 
> >> On 26.04.2018 18:09, Alex Bennée wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Thomas Huth <thuth@redhat.com> writes:
> >>>
> >>>> On 25.04.2018 17:33, Alex Bennée wrote:
> >>>>> People following old instructions for QEMU get the message "No machine
> >>>>> specified, and there is no default" and run -machine help to pick a
> >>>>> new machine. Lay people might consider the null-machine to be such a
> >>>>> basic starting point but they won't get far. This leads to confusion,
> >>>>> see https://bugs.launchpad.net/qemu/+bug/1766896 as an example.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I'm open to better words - I figured "THIS PROBABLY ISN'T WHAT YOU
> >>>>> WANT" seemed less helpful though.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Signed-off-by: Alex Bennée <alex.bennee@linaro.org>
> >>>>> ---
> >>>>>  hw/core/null-machine.c | 2 +-
> >>>>>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
> >>>>>
> >>>>> diff --git a/hw/core/null-machine.c b/hw/core/null-machine.c
> >>>>> index cde4d3eb57..72f0815045 100644
> >>>>> --- a/hw/core/null-machine.c
> >>>>> +++ b/hw/core/null-machine.c
> >>>>> @@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ static void machine_none_init(MachineState *mch)
> >>>>>
> >>>>>  static void machine_none_machine_init(MachineClass *mc)
> >>>>>  {
> >>>>> -    mc->desc = "empty machine";
> >>>>> +    mc->desc = "empty machine (for probing/QMP)";
> 
> Actually, thinking about this again, what about something like:
> 
>  "empty machine (for experts only)"
> 
> or:
> 
>  "empty machine (use only if you know what you are doing)"
> 
> or something similar?

I think a note like this would be a good idea, but it would be
even better if we actually document the purpose and caveats of
-machine none on the man page.

-- 
Eduardo