From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=32769 helo=eggs.gnu.org)
	by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Ogerx-0003zh-4H
	for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Wed, 04 Aug 2010 10:22:58 -0400
Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69)
	(envelope-from <paolo.bonzini@gmail.com>) id 1Ogert-0007KD-MK
	for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Wed, 04 Aug 2010 10:22:54 -0400
Received: from mail-vw0-f45.google.com ([209.85.212.45]:38092)
	by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69)
	(envelope-from <paolo.bonzini@gmail.com>) id 1Ogert-0007K7-KE
	for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Wed, 04 Aug 2010 10:22:53 -0400
Received: by vws19 with SMTP id 19so4277391vws.4
	for <qemu-devel@nongnu.org>; Wed, 04 Aug 2010 07:22:53 -0700 (PDT)
Sender: Paolo Bonzini <paolo.bonzini@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4C5977B7.9020008@redhat.com>
Date: Wed, 04 Aug 2010 16:22:47 +0200
From: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] Anyone seeing huge slowdown launching qemu with
	Linux 2.6.35?
References: <4C586CF9.7030206@redhat.com> <4C588804.5060803@redhat.com>
	<4C590046.2020705@redhat.com> <4C591D48.9080301@redhat.com>
	<4C592218.3000901@redhat.com> <4C596549.1070109@codemonkey.ws>
	<20100804130709.GL10499@redhat.com>
	<4C5967D8.7080707@codemonkey.ws>
	<20100804133401.GP10499@redhat.com>
	<4C5970AC.6060105@codemonkey.ws>
	<20100804140011.GR10499@redhat.com>
In-Reply-To: <20100804140011.GR10499@redhat.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
List-Id: qemu-devel.nongnu.org
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/qemu-devel>,
	<mailto:qemu-devel-request@nongnu.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel>
List-Post: <mailto:qemu-devel@nongnu.org>
List-Help: <mailto:qemu-devel-request@nongnu.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/qemu-devel>,
	<mailto:qemu-devel-request@nongnu.org?subject=subscribe>
To: Gleb Natapov <gleb@redhat.com>
Cc: kvm@vger.kernel.org, qemu-devel@nongnu.org, "Richard W.M. Jones" <rjones@redhat.com>, Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>, Gerd Hoffmann <kraxel@redhat.com>

On 08/04/2010 04:00 PM, Gleb Natapov wrote:
>> Maybe we're just being too fancy here.
>>
>> We could rewrite -kernel/-append/-initrd to just generate a floppy
>> image in RAM, and just boot from floppy.
>>
> May be. Can floppy be 100M?

Well, in theory you can have 16384 bytes/sector, 256 tracks, 255 
sectors, 2 heads... that makes 2^(14+8+8+1) = 2 GB. :)  Not sure the 
BIOS would read such a beast, or SYSLINUX.

By the way, if libguestfs insists for an initrd rather than a CDROM 
image, it could do something in between and make an ISO image with 
ISOLINUX and the required kernel/initrd pair.

(By the way, a network installation image for a typical distribution has 
a 120M initrd, so it's not just libguestfs.  It is very useful to pass 
the network installation images directly to qemu via -kernel/-initrd).

Paolo