Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S932213AbWCOKZa (ORCPT ); Wed, 15 Mar 2006 05:25:30 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S932223AbWCOKZa (ORCPT ); Wed, 15 Mar 2006 05:25:30 -0500 Received: from pentafluge.infradead.org ([213.146.154.40]:445 "EHLO pentafluge.infradead.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S932213AbWCOKZ3 (ORCPT ); Wed, 15 Mar 2006 05:25:29 -0500 Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 10:25:22 +0000 From: Christoph Hellwig To: Zachary Amsden Cc: Arjan van de Ven , Linus Torvalds , Linux Kernel Mailing List , Virtualization Mailing List , Xen-devel , Andrew Morton , Dan Hecht , Dan Arai , Anne Holler , Pratap Subrahmanyam , Christopher Li , Joshua LeVasseur , Chris Wright , Rik Van Riel , Jyothy Reddy , Jack Lo , Kip Macy , Jan Beulich , Ky Srinivasan , Wim Coekaerts , Leendert van Doorn Subject: Re: [RFC, PATCH 0/24] VMI i386 Linux virtualization interface proposal Message-ID: <20060315102522.GA5926@infradead.org> Mail-Followup-To: Christoph Hellwig , Zachary Amsden , Arjan van de Ven , Linus Torvalds , Linux Kernel Mailing List , Virtualization Mailing List , Xen-devel , Andrew Morton , Dan Hecht , Dan Arai , Anne Holler , Pratap Subrahmanyam , Christopher Li , Joshua LeVasseur , Chris Wright , Rik Van Riel , Jyothy Reddy , Jack Lo , Kip Macy , Jan Beulich , Ky Srinivasan , Wim Coekaerts , Leendert van Doorn References: <200603131758.k2DHwQM7005618@zach-dev.vmware.com> <1142273346.3023.38.camel@laptopd505.fenrus.org> <4415B857.9010902@vmware.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <4415B857.9010902@vmware.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i X-SRS-Rewrite: SMTP reverse-path rewritten from by pentafluge.infradead.org See http://www.infradead.org/rpr.html Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1156 Lines: 23 On Mon, Mar 13, 2006 at 10:22:15AM -0800, Zachary Amsden wrote: > >Why can't vmware use the Xen interface instead? > > > > We could. But it is our opinion that the Xen interface is unnecessarily > complicated, without a clean separation between the layer of interaction > with the hypervisor and the kernel proper. The interface we propose we > believe is more powerful, and more conducive to performance > optimizations while providing significant advantages - most > specifically, a single binary image that is properly virtualizable on > multiple hypervisors and capable of running on native hardware. I agree with Zach here, the Xen hypervisor <-> kernel interface is not very nice. This proposal seems like a step forward althogh it'll probably need to go through a few iterations. Without and actually useable opensource hypevisor reference implementation it's totally unacceptable, though. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/