Re: Linux Kernel Summit 2012 hallway talks - PV MMU, PVH, hpa, tglrx, stefano and me.

[Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@oracle.com>]

On Mon, Dec 10, 2012 at 09:32:29AM +0000, Ian Campbell wrote:
> On Fri, 2012-12-07 at 17:05 +0000, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk wrote:
> 
> >    Anyhow, once the PVH works - so can do SMP guests, does
> >    properly interrupt delivery, etc, we would obsolete the PV MMU
> >    mode in 5 years. This means that arch/x86/xen/p2m.c and arch/x86/xen/mmu.c
> >    along with a host of paravirt interfaces would be #ifdef-ed out.
> >    There would also be a note in the Documentation/deprecate-schedule
> >    pointing that out. If everything time-wise aligns itself that
> >    means 2013 is when PVH has it debut and will have its kinks worked
> >    out. 2018 is when PV MMU would be obsoleted. The impact is that in
> >    2018 users would need Intel VT-d or AMD VI-IOMMU capable machine to run
> >    the latest Linux dom0 kernel with device drivers on x86.
> >    You would still be able to run the ancient PV kernels (like 2.6.18) as
> >    guests - just not as a dom0.
> 
> I'm not sure I follow -- why does this future change in mainline Linux
> have any impact on other kernel trees and their ability to run as dom0?

It does not. Thank you for catching that.
The last sentence should not have 'just not as dom0'.

> 
> Ian.
>