Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] Deprecate the qemu-system-i386 binary

[Philippe Mathieu-Daudé]

On 26/4/23 12:59, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> On 4/25/23 15:38, Thomas Huth wrote:
> > - CPU types have different suffixes between the -x86_64 and -i386
> >    variant (see TYPE_X86_CPU in cpu-qom.h) ... do we need to care
> >    about this in the new qemu-system-i386 symlink run mode?
> >
> > - The code in target/i386/tcg/sysemu/smm_helper.c looks like it
> >    maybe needs a runtime switch, too ... or is it ok to leave this
> >    hard-coded to the x86_64 version?
>
> Yes, it would have to switch based on the CPU's LM feature.
>
> > Anyway, I'd like to get some feedback on this idea here... What
> > do you think of the idea of getting rid of the qemu-system-i386
> > binary this way in the future?
>
> I wonder if we should take this a step further and rename 
> qemu-system-x86_64 to qemu-system-x86!  Distros can if they wish create 
> symlinks to both qemu-system-i386 and qemu-system-x86_64.

Is it simpler to *add* an experimental qemu-system-x86 binary, then
once it support both i386/x86_64 modes, remove (symlinking) the other
ones, or rename qemu-system-x86_64 and start with a symlink?
(I know we are very reluctant to add new binaries due to distributions
shipping them even if experimental).

> Then we would name the CPUs "foo-x86" and alias them to foo-x86_64 and, 
> if they don't have LM set, to foo-i386 as well.
>
> Paolo