Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH] tools/firmware: use a canned config for seabios

[Wei Liu <wei.liu2@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 11:54:45AM +0000, Paul Durrant wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Wei Liu [mailto:wei.liu2@xxxxxxxxxx]
> > Sent: 24 March 2017 11:47
> > To: Paul Durrant <Paul.Durrant@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > Cc: xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Ian Jackson <Ian.Jackson@xxxxxxxxxx>;
> > Wei Liu <wei.liu2@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > Subject: Re: [PATCH] tools/firmware: use a canned config for seabios
> > 
> > On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 05:03:09PM +0000, Paul Durrant wrote:
> > > The use of seabios defconfig kills boot performance of Windows guests
> > > because the default is for the int13 handler to use PIO when accessing
> > > the emulated IDE device.
> > >
> > > By instead using a canned configuration with the ATA settings overridden
> > > to enable DMA access (and also wider PIO) boot performance is markedly
> > > improved without the need to use a different (and possibly not supported)
> > > device model.
> > >
> > > This patch adds the canned configuration into tools/firmware and modifies
> > > the Makefile rule to copy it into place.
> > >
> > 
> > I think at some point someone (you?) tried to change the default
> > upstream, what was the outcome?
> > 
> 
> Yes I tried that. The maintainers nacked the patch.
> 
> > I'm not against shipping a default config, but that wouldn't benefit all
> > the distros that use their own seabios packages.
> > 
> 
> No, but the status quo sucks. One hopes distros building their own Xen 
> packages already choose a better firmware config. This patch makes the config 
> for those rolling their own firmware better (and I suspect that's quite a few 
> folks).
> 

I forgot to ask: what exactly in this config file is different from the
default one?

Wei.

>   Paul
> 
> > Wei.

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