Re: [Qemu-devel] config file support

[Ben Taylor <sol10x86@cox.net>]

---- "K. Richard Pixley" <rich.pixley@palmsource.com> wrote: 
> Rob Landley wrote:
> > On Wednesday 18 October 2006 2:42 pm, Chuck Brazie wrote:
> >   
> >> Is there any work going on now to add config file support?
> >>
> >> Chuck Brazie 
> >> brazie@us.ibm.com
> >>     
> > As a random end-user, I really like being able to run qemu without a config 
> > file, configuring it entirely on the command line.  I'd be highly 
> > disappointed if qemu turned into another Wine.
> Except that I never do.  Instead, I write a trivial shell script since I 
> can never remember the command line options, much less type them in 
> consistently.
> 
> What's the difference between a shell script to cover qemu and a 
> #!/bin/qemu config file?  Seems to me they both address roughly the same 
> issues with roughly the same considerations.  Am I missing any 
> significant functionality differences?

There are probably no functional differences.  A shell script with a config
file (which is how I wrote one 18 months ago) should be able to handle 
almost any kind of config, without adding to code bloat to qemu.  

The script I wrote is probably horribly out of date, and has some holes
(and probably some logic flaws yet unfound), but for the most part 
replicated most of the things I wanted to do (networking, tun/tap or 
redirs, samba etc ) without having to type  command lines in excess of 200 
characters.  Given that I had probably 8-10 qemu guest systems, it was 
a huge time saver when it came to starting up a brand new guest.

Ben