Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] e1000: add the ability to select among

[Gabriel L. Somlo]

On Mon, 24 Feb 2014 15:08:17 -0500 Romain Dolbeau <address@hidden> wrote:
> This patch adds this ability to select a specific variant of
> the e1000 virtual ethernet from the command-line. Previously
> only a single device was available, selected at compile time.
> This helps for guests with limited hardware support, as with
> this patch not all guests are required to use the same device.
> 
> So for instance to use the emulated 82545EM in OSX[1], a user
> would add e.g. the options:
> 
> "-netdev user,id=mynet0 -device 82545EM,netdev=mynet0"

Apparently, starting with 10.9 (Mavericks), the built-in Intel e1000
driver (AppleIntel8254XEthernet.kext) no longer works with the default
e1000 "flavor" (DEVICE_ID) emulated by QEMU (E1000_DEV_ID_82540EM). It
seems to work great with E1000_DEV_ID_82545EM_COPPER, though.

E1000_DEV_ID_82545EM_COPPER, however, does not work with Windows (I
tried XP and 7). So there isn't currently one e1000 DEVIE_ID that
could "rule them all", so to speak... Linux works fine with whatever,
but then we already expected that :)

So, I think it would be nice to be able to select the specific
"flavor" of e1000 at run time, along the lines of what this patch
does.

Thanks,
--Gabriel