Re: A set of "standard" virtual devices?

[H. Peter Anvin]

Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> > That being said, on platforms which are PCI-centric, such as x86, this 
> > of course makes it a lot easier to produce virtual devices which work 
> > across hypervisors, since the device model, of *any* operating system is 
> > set up to handle them.
>
> Yes, as I said there are two separate problems. I really think that
> a standardized virtual driver interface should be modeled after
> kernel <-> user interfaces, not hardware <-> kernel interfaces.
>
> Once we know what operations we want (e.g. read, write and SIGIO,
> or some other set of primitives), it will be good to provide a
> virtual PCI device that can be used as one transport mechanism
> below it. Using PCI device IDs to tell what functionality is
> provided by the device would provide a reasonable method for
> autoprobing.

That seems like a reasonable approach.  I *do* care about 
hardware-equivalent interfaces, because they, too, keep getting 
reinvented, but it seems reasonable to approach it in a layered fashion 
like you describe.

	-hpa

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