[Xen-devel] Re: [PATCH] build in SATA drivers to the -xen kernel forx86_64

[Sean Dague <japh@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Mar 29, 2006 at 09:40:27PM +0100, Ian Pratt wrote:
> > This patch adds in the SATA drivers that are supported in the 
> > -xen0 kernel. 
> > Because the default behavior of xen is to reboot on a dom0 
> > crash (i.e. not finding root filesystem), and the xen0 kernel 
> > supported SATA directly, a number of people (including 
> > myself) got caught by the switch over.
> > 
> > Long term, we probably want to modularize more of the kernel, 
> > and make initrd building more of the default, however this 
> > should ease people's transition from the -xen0 => -xen kernel 
> > for testing on x86_64.
> 
> Is it even possible to boot a modern distro without an initrd? Most
> require an initrd for udev/console stuff.

Well, Mandriva still has enough static dev entries to give you /dev/null and
/dev/console, which gets you through early boot ok without an initrd.  I
think a lot of other distros are still in that state as well, and haven't
completely removed everything in /dev

> I'd certainly like to see a patch (and clear documentation) that helps
> users with building an appropriate initrd.

Harry was talking about that on IRC today actually, so I'll leave it in his
court for now.  (Harry, feel free to object :) )

> [I'd wouldn't mind seeing a couple of common SATA controllers included
> in the -xen config anyhow.]

Yeh, that what's I was hoping to get out of all of this.  The net effect of
adding those drivers in is a few 10s of k of object code, but just helps
with the out of the box experience for people that were using the -xen0
kernel.

        -Sean

-- 
Sean Dague
IBM Linux Technology Center                     email: japh@xxxxxxxxxx
Open Hypervisor Team                           alt: sldague@xxxxxxxxxx

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