[Qemu-devel] Re: [PATCH 1/4] Add GPL bios as a submodule

[Anthony Liguori <aliguori@us.ibm.com>]

Avi Kivity wrote:
> Anthony Liguori wrote:
>> Signed-off-by: Anthony Liguori <aliguori@us.ibm.com>
>> ---
>>  .gitmodules  |    3 +++
>>  roms/gplbios |    1 +
>>  2 files changed, 4 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
>>  create mode 100644 .gitmodules
>>  create mode 160000 roms/gplbios
>>
>> diff --git a/.gitmodules b/.gitmodules
>> new file mode 100644
>> index 0000000..9bdf196
>> --- /dev/null
>> +++ b/.gitmodules
>> @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
>> +[submodule "roms/gplbios"]
>> +    path = roms/gplbios
>> +    url = git://repo.or.cz/gplbios/qemu.git
>>   
>
> I really prefer a relative path here, so that people can set up 
> mirrors on an internal server.  Also, not everyone can access the git 
> port.  It can be worked around, but it's much better to have things 
> working out of the proverbial box.

Do you also include a way to automatically setup the relative path?  
Otherwise, it's a multi-step process for someone to fetch all of the git 
trees for building.

We have a lot of ROMs, so this is potentially very undesirable.  People 
can always make local changes to the .gitmodules file.

> Also, s/roms/firmware/ to be modern.

ROM is a little more specific in my mind.  We had a long debate in IRC 
as to what was appropriate to include in pc-bios.  One key requirement 
is that whatever is there has to be a ROM because of the fact that we 
install it in a read-only location in the file system.

On embedded boards, the entire operating system stack constitutes 
"firmware".

> Having said all that, I'd rather see seabios here.  Sure, it will take 
> us time to add missing features, if any, but life will be much more 
> pleasant afterwards.  We should reduce our ties to the bochs bios, not 
> tighten them.

Actually, I want to include seabios in here too and install it by default.

There's already a -bios option that can be used to change the bios file 
name.  After some basic testing, we can decide whether we should change 
the default bios we use.  With both installed, it's easier to have 
people check for bugs in one verse the other.

-- 
Regards,

Anthony Liguori