Re: [PATCH 05/22] hw/arm: Select VIRTIO_NET for virt machine

[Thomas Huth <thuth@redhat.com>]

On 03/05/2023 20.32, Peter Maydell wrote:
> On Wed, 3 May 2023 at 18:06, Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 5/3/23 17:35, Alex Bennée wrote:
>>>> You should select a device only if you cannot even start
>>>> the machine without --nodefaults.
>>>
>>> Which is the case here right? We could skip tests that explicitly
>>> instantiate a device but these are tests failing with default devices
>>> the machine tries to instantiate.
>>
>> I'm sorry, I meant "select" directives are needed if you cannot even
>> start the machine *with* --nodefaults.
>>
>> Devices that are added *without* --nodefaults should use "imply"
>> directives instead, as is already the case.
> 
> Do we really want to build a QEMU that then barfs unless
> you pass -nodefaults, though ? That doesn't seem very useful.
> Something somewhere ought to be saying "if you want the
> virt board then you almost certainly want these". Or
> alternatively we should fall back to "don't create a
> network device we don't have", maybe ?

I think we should do the latter. If you compiled without certain devices 
that are used only in the default mode, the board should not try to 
instantiate such devices (since it is also working fine without them). Just 
my 0.02 €.

  Thomas