[Qemu-devel] [RFC] New naming rules for GPXE romfiles

[Stefan Weil <weil@mail.berlios.de>]

The current names of GPXE romfiles are something like
pxe-e1000.bin, pxe-ne2k_pci.bin, pxe-rtl8139.bin.

This was adequate when these names were computed
by a simple rule using the device name.

Today, an ethernet device can be associated to any
romfile name.

Etherboot's Rom-o-Matic (which creates qemu's romfiles)
creates names like gpxe-0.9.9-80861209.rom.

I don't think it would be good to use etherboot's names
because they contain the gpxe version (0.9.9) which
might change.

But a modified name without the gpxe version like
gpxe-80861209.rom would have some advantages:

* gpxe* is better than pxe* because the files contain
  a gPXE boot ROM - not a proprietary PXE ROM.

* The romfiles are ROM files, not undefined binaries,
  so *.rom looks better than *.bin.

* For drivers like eepro100.c which implement several devices,
  a naming rule based on PCI device and vendor id (80861209)
  is better than a rule based on device names:
  devices with same ids can share the same romfile.

* Transforming an etherboot romfile name to a qemu romfile name
  is simple when all you have to do is to remove the version.
  This would also simplify pc-bios/README.

The proposed new names should be used for new romfiles.
Optionally, the existing romfiles could be renamed.

Please tell me what you think of these suggestions.

Regards
Stefan Weil

PS. Mixing ROM data for different hosts in one directory
(as it is done today) could be improved, too:

* Separate directories for different hosts.
* Include the host in the romfile name (as it is done
  for the openbios roms).
* pc-bios was historically correct but is no longer adequate.

As far as I remember, there had already been some discussion
on these points some time ago.