Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S964833AbXHVVqu (ORCPT ); Wed, 22 Aug 2007 17:46:50 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S933970AbXHVVq0 (ORCPT ); Wed, 22 Aug 2007 17:46:26 -0400 Received: from smtp-outbound-1.vmware.com ([65.113.40.141]:46830 "EHLO smtp-outbound-1.vmware.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S933678AbXHVVqY (ORCPT ); Wed, 22 Aug 2007 17:46:24 -0400 Message-ID: <46CCAD7A.80505@vmware.com> Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 14:41:14 -0700 From: Zachary Amsden User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.6 (X11/20070728) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Alan Cox CC: Andi Kleen , Andrew Morton , Linux Kernel Mailing List , Virtualization Mailing List , Rusty Russell , Chris Wright , Avi Kivity , Jeremy Fitzhardinge Subject: Re: [PATCH] Add I/O hypercalls for i386 paravirt References: <46CBC842.4070100@vmware.com> <20070822102217.GE2642@bingen.suse.de> <46CC68D9.5060200@vmware.com> <20070822175918.GB8058@bingen.suse.de> <46CC6D63.2010204@vmware.com> <20070822194632.GD8058@bingen.suse.de> <46CC9FF2.3040406@vmware.com> <20070822220451.GJ8058@bingen.suse.de> <20070822222528.7c58f1e9@the-village.bc.nu> In-Reply-To: <20070822222528.7c58f1e9@the-village.bc.nu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1537 Lines: 40 Alan Cox wrote: >> I still think it's preferable to change some drivers than everybody. >> >> AFAIK BusLogic as real hardware is pretty much dead anyways, >> so you're probably the only primary user of it anyways. >> Go wild on it! >> > > I don't believe anyone is materially maintaining the buslogic driver and > in time its going to break completely. > I think I was actually the last person to touch it ;) > >> Well that might be. I just think it would be a mistake >> to design paravirt_ops based on someone's short term release engineering >> considerations. >> > > Agreed, especially as an interface where each in or out traps into the > hypervisor is broken even for the model of virtualising hardware. > Well, it's not necessarily broken, it's just a different model. At some point the cost of maintaining a whole suite of virtual drivers becomes greater than leveraging a bunch of legacy drivers. If you can eliminate most of the performance cost of that by changing something at a layer below (port I/O), it is a win even if it is not a perfect solution. But I think I've lost the argument anyways; it doesn't seem to be for the greater good of Linux, and there are alternatives we can take. Unfortunately for me, they require a lot more work. Zach - 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/