Re: [PATCH 0/3] s390x: modularize virtio-gpu-ccw

[Halil Pasic <pasic@linux.ibm.com>]

On Wed, 17 Mar 2021 10:56:19 +0100
Gerd Hoffmann <kraxel@redhat.com> wrote:

> Maybe not the most elegant but rather simple approach to the "parent
> object missing" problem: Use a symbol reference to make sure ccw modules
> load only in case ccw support is present.

[..]

Hi Gerd! I've tested this and I think mostly does what it should. The
only thing that I'm inclined to consider a little quirky is the first
message:

$ ./qemu-system-x86_64 -device virtio-gpu-ccw
Failed to open module: /home/pasic/build/qemu/hw-s390x-virtio-gpu-ccw.so: undefined symbol: have_virtio_ccw
qemu-system-x86_64: -device virtio-gpu-ccw: 'virtio-gpu-ccw' is not a valid device model name

But with something like --help we don't see it, and I assume neither do
we when probing, because there the modules are loaded with mayfail. So
for me this is acceptable, because it happens only if one tries to use a
device that ain't advertised.

Compared to Daniels suggestion, I find that one conceptually clearer,
and even more flexible. Implementation-wise I find this patch-set
simpler. I don't know how would it scale to modules depending on modules
(and it feels a little hackish), but we can address such problems as they
emerge if they emerge, so I did not think too hard.

Let me also note, that you took authorship of all three patches, which
I'm fine with. All I really care about at this stage is getting this
fixed in a remotely sane way, and this is definitely one. I'm also
willing to invest more work in that symlink based approach, if that is
what the community wants, but I would prefer this fixed as soon as
possible.

If you keep the authorship for all the patches, I would like to offer:
Reviewed-by: Halil Pasic <pasic@linux.ibm.com>
Tested-by: Halil Pasic <pasic@linux.ibm.com>
for all three patches. (If I'm going to be the author of some of the
patches, those tags don't make sense for those).

Thanks for your work!

Regards,
Halil