Adding a new x86 image or related packages to the default x86 image

[Philip Prindeville]

> On Nov 13, 2023, at 7:26 PM, Elliott Mitchell <ehem+openwrt at m5p.com> wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 12:48:14PM +0000, Daniel Golle wrote:
>> On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 01:30:10PM +0100, Paul Spooren wrote:
>>> 
>>> How about we follow the approach of Alpine Linux[1] and offer a standard, an extended and a virtual firmware for the x86/64 target?
>>> 
>>> What packages specifically is another discussion but the approach could be that standard contains all kmods to get network working on all device, extended includes extra LED drivers etc and virtual only contains network drivers for, well, virtual things.
>> 
>> +1
>> I like that much more than adding board-specific images on a platform
>> with standardized boot process (such as x86 or armsr).
> 
> [...]
> 
> The real issue is VMs are unlikely to see devices typically present on
> bare metal computers.  Thermal capabilities?  Nope.  Processor frequency
> selection?  Nope.  Microcode reloading?  Nope.
> 
> Each hypervisor will have a small set of drivers guaranteed to be
> present.  These though will be completely different between hypervisors.


With KVM and kmod-vfio-pci you can do reverse-pass thru where the host isn't controlling the hardware but the guest is.  I know some people who do this to test WiFi drivers from KVM guests.

-Philip