On Mon, 24 May 2021 at 10:42, Laszlo Ersek <ler...@redhat.com> wrote: > > Hi, > > the "OvmfXen.dsc" platform supports not only HVM guests, but also PVH > guests. This platform does not run on QEMU. > > The historical "OvmfPkgIa32.dsc", "OvmfPkgIa32X64.dsc", "OvmfPkgX64.dsc" > platforms support Xen guests, HVM only. They dynamically adapt to QEMU > vs. Xen HVM. > > This dynamism has been a *huge* development and maintenance complication > over the years. Another issue (which has been becoming ever more acute) > is the NOOPT binary size, which certainly matters for debugging. > > With the introduction of OvmfXen in August 2019 > <https://bugzilla.tianocore.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1689>, we formed a plan > to remove the dynamism. Xen guests would only be targeted with the > OvmfXen platform, while the "historical three" would only target QEMU. > See <https://bugzilla.tianocore.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2122>. > > The incompatibility is that an existing Xen guest that uses one of the > "OvmfPkgIa32.dsc", "OvmfPkgIa32X64.dsc", "OvmfPkgX64.dsc" firmware > binaries will have to be reconfigured on the host to switch to the > "OvmfXen.dsc" binary, after an edk2 package upgrade brings the above > change to the host. > > Anthony originally proposed a 1 year grace period; we're now at 23 > months. I've got 20 patches thus far, and those only take us about one > third, or maybe one half, of the way. It's a very intrusive patch > series, not one to revert after it's applied. > > My intent / hope is to get this merged into the (presumed) > edk2-stable202108 tag. If you find that too early, please speak up. > > If you have another distro with LTS in mind whose package maintainer I > should have put on the address list, please don't hesitate to add them. > > Please note that my question is not *if* we should do this, the question > is *when* you can tolerate it, in your respective distros. >
I have no stake in this, but I do strongly support this change. As Laszlo points out, the maintenance burden is substantial, with very little benefit. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#75500): https://edk2.groups.io/g/devel/message/75500 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/83046440/21656 Group Owner: devel+ow...@edk2.groups.io Unsubscribe: https://edk2.groups.io/g/devel/unsub [arch...@mail-archive.com] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
