Re: [Xen-merge] xen-merge mailing list

[Chris Wright <chrisw@xxxxxxxx>]

* Ian Pratt (m+Ian.Pratt@xxxxxxxxxxxx) wrote:
> Please excuse me from auto-subscribing you to this list, but I figured
> it would be useful to have a list dedicated for discussion about getting
> arch-xen prepared for sending upstream.

Thanks for setting that up Ian.

> It's pretty clear that we need to move fast on this, lest we get stuck
> with the VMware VMI proposal that just doesn't do what we need to get
> good performance.  I'd much rather get our patch in first and add their
> hooks to our stuff, rather than being forced to work within the
> framework of their very low-level approach. 

I agree, it makes sense to get things in, and let later work go on with
something concrete in place.

> So, how best to go about this? Can we parallelize the work? Where to
> start?

I've started by simply creating an i386 sub-arch and moving bits over.
(nowhere near compiling, just trying to get a handle on how much work
there is and how it will split out).  I use this dumb script that
basically diffs arch/xen/i386/* against arch/i386/*, for example,
to generate the actual changes.  This could literally go file by file
with an eye for basic cleanups.  We've had a few suggestions about the
cleanups, such as ifdefs based on some config which essentially says
physical machine, to effectively comment code out for Xen, or actual
inlines and macros that are populated by the sub-arch.  Likely both are
options depending on the specifics.  For example, x86_64 has method for
alternative apic, I wonder if such a scheme might not be useful for i386
as well?

Also, Andi mentioned to me that he'd actually prefer to try and merge
the x86_64 bits directly into the x86_64 port rather than add a sub-arch
there if possible (Andi, please correct me if I misunderstood).

> Anyone interested in a trip to Cambridge to work on this stuff? It's a
> nice time of year for a visit -- nice warm summer evenings sitting in
> beer gardens...

Hmm, quite tempting.

thanks,
-chris

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