Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 3/3] PPC PReP: can run without bios image

[Alexander Graf]

On 04.04.2013, at 18:30, Peter Maydell wrote:

> On 4 April 2013 17:26, Artyom Tarasenko <address@hidden> wrote:
>> On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 6:20 PM, Peter Maydell <address@hidden> wrote:
>>> But -kernel for QEMU specifically means Linux kernel; you might
>>> argue we should have picked a different option name but we're
>>> stuck with it now.
>> 
>> No, it's not Linux-only. At least qemu-system-sparc can load NetBSD
>> kernel with this option.
> 
> Another example of being inconsistent across architectures, then.
> My point stands:
> * -kernel (if it means anything at all) has to mean "boot in
> the way a Linux kernel expects and defines its boot protocol"

This is what -kernel does. If more OSs than Linux end up happy with that 
interface, great. Examples for that are multiboot kernels on x86. But in 
general, kernels want to talk to firmware.

> * "just load a binary and run it" needs to be some other option,
> because that's not the same thing

This is what -bios does. Maybe we should add an alias and call it "-firmware", 
but the idea stays the same. That's the initial blob executed when a VM gets up.

> The two aren't the same thing in all cases and it's just confusing
> to try to make them mean the same thing for the subset of cases
> where it happens to be ok.

I agree.


Alex