Re: [Qemu-devel] Modular qemu?

[Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>]

Anthony Liguori wrote:
>>> Plugins are not the solution though.
>>
>> What about non-plugin dlopen()?  Right now building qemu (with all 
>> options enabled) requires a large amount of libraries, hence a lot of 
>> dependencies.  For example, a server setup that will only be used 
>> with -vnc needs to have SDL installed.  This will only get worse with 
>> opengl support.
>
> Practically speaking, how helpful is this?  You still need to have the 
> libraries present at build time

Build time is not an issue; distros usually build with all possible 
options enabled.

> and it's arguable about how much text savings you get because there's 
> some cruft added from loading the libraries themselves.

The goal is not to save text (though that's an added benefit), but to 
drop an infinite chain of dependencies.  Right now, to have both desktop 
and server deployments, there are two options:

- build two different binaries with different build-time options.  
Distro maintainers will hug and kiss you whenever you mention this option.
- install SDL, X11 client libraries, and their dependencies on the 
server.  In the future, this gets worse, with opengl libraries, DRI 
drivers, and maybe even gtk2 and qt for a sane UI.  Sysadmins will 
propose on the spot if you suggest this to them.

-- 
I have a truly marvellous patch that fixes the bug which this
signature is too narrow to contain.