[SeaBIOS] [PATCH] don't expose pvpanic device in the UI

[Paolo Bonzini]

On 08/05/2013 06:18 PM, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
>>>> Depending on the management, "management" could just be the user.
>>>> Most of the time the user simply says to use virtio in the XML.
>>>>
>>>> If it had to be specified manually every time, pvpanic would be
>>>> just another knob that nobody uses.
>>>
>>> Management tools already set XML appropriately depending
>>> on the guest. If users are happy to leave the device alone,
>>> we are also happy.
>>
>> What if the guest is upgraded?  How does the user know they have
>> to add a magic device?
>
> Device is useless without a driver anyway.

Who cares?  It doesn't eat valuable resources.  (20 bytes in the DSDT 
are not valuable, a PCI slot is).

> How does user know there's need to install a driver?

Apparently that was not a problem in Vista and later, when Microsoft 
stopped bugging users with the wizard by default.  And it's never been a 
problem in Linux.

But they don't need to know that, since probably no one will write a 
driver for pvpanic that runs on Windows XP (6 months before EOL) or 2003 
(18 months before EOL).

> So let's add -device pvpanic to QEMU, same as any device, if
> you think everyone absolutely wants this device explain this
> to libvirt guys and they'll add it by default, they
> are much closer to real users and can treat this appropriately.

It will be exactly the same problem, just thrown further from where you 
can find a real solution---which is not QEMU and is not libvirt, it is 
in the firmware.

>> Really, all guests handle the missing driver without asking the user.
>
> Did you really check them all?

All those that have a GUI that runs by default, and manage drivers in 
said GUI...

>> At some point MSFT even issued a hotfix to disable the pesky Found
>> New Hardware wizard.  Let's treat it as a guest bug, hide the device
>> altogether with _OSI (detecting Vista or 2008 or Linux),
>> and declare
>> that Windows 2000/XP/2003 lack support for pvpanic.
>
> Sounds like you merely mean all windows guests.

... which means all Windows guests, yes.

Paolo