Re: [PATCH v10 13/15] docs/microvm.rst: document the new microvm machine type

[Sergio Lopez]

Philippe Mathieu-Daudé <address@hidden> writes:

> On 10/17/19 12:45 PM, Sergio Lopez wrote:
>>
>> Philippe Mathieu-Daudé <address@hidden> writes:
>>
>>> Hi Sergio,
>>>
>>> On 10/16/19 12:12 PM, Sergio Lopez wrote:
>>>> +Supported devices
>>>> +-----------------
>>>> +
>>>> +The microvm machine type supports the following devices:
>>>> +
>>>> +- ISA bus
>>>> +- i8259 PIC (optional)
>>>> +- i8254 PIT (optional)
>>>> +- MC146818 RTC (optional)
>>>> +- One ISA serial port (optional)
>>>> +- LAPIC
>>>> +- IOAPIC (with kernel-irqchip=split by default)
>>>> +- kvmclock (if using KVM)
>>>> +- fw_cfg
>>>> +- Up to eight virtio-mmio devices (configured by the user)
>>>
>>> If we have VirtIO devices, why not use virtio-serial instead of the
>>> one on the ISA bus?
>>
>> The serial port on the ISA bus is simpler, and thus is supported for
>> both SeaBIOS debugging and Linux's earlyprintk. This makes it *very*
>> convenient for debugging boot issues.
>
> "... but it's also compatible with SeaBIOS"
>
> OK. Maybe we can add a comment such "These devices are the minimum
> required to run SeaBIOS" in the 'Supported devices' section.

Well, that's not exactly true. SeaBIOS works without a serial port, it's
just you can't get it to send its debugging messages anywhere (which
most people won't see anyway).

Sergio.

>>
>> Also, as it's explained in the documentation, users that no longer need
>> it can disable the device and just rely on virtio-console.
>>
>> Sergio.
>>

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