Re: [Qemu-devel] Submit your Google Summer of Code project ideas and volunteer to mentor

[Hannes Reinecke]

On 01/27/2015 06:55 PM, John Snow wrote:
> 
> 
> On 01/27/2015 07:48 AM, Hannes Reinecke wrote:
>> On 01/23/2015 06:21 PM, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
>>> Dear libvirt, KVM, and QEMU contributors,
>>> The Google Summer of Code season begins soon and it's time to
>>> collect
>>> our thoughts for mentoring students this summer working full-time on
>>> libvirt, KVM, and QEMU.
>>>
>>> What is GSoC?
>>> Google Summer of Code 2015 (GSoC) funds students to
>>> work on open source projects for 12 weeks over the summer.  Open
>>> source organizations apply to participate and those accepted receive
>>> funding for one or more students.
>>>
>>>
>>> We now need to collect a list of project ideas on our wiki.  We also
>>> need mentors to volunteer.
>>>
>>> http://qemu-project.org/Google_Summer_of_Code_2015
>>>
>>> Project ideas
>>> Please post project ideas on the wiki page below.  Project ideas
>>> should be suitable as a 12-week project that a student fluent in
>>> C/Python/etc can complete.  No prior knowledge of QEMU/KVM/libvirt
>>> internals can be assumed.
>>>
>> I'm not the most active of contributors, but here's an idea:
>>
>> Project idea: Integrate ide ATAPI and scsi CD-ROM driver
>>
>> Currently the ide ATAPI and scsi CD-ROM driver are two
>> distinct implementations, and have different bugs/features.
>> This leads to the situation that things which work when using the IDE
>> emulation don't work when using the SCSI emulation and vice versa.
>> So this project is for implementing a virtual ATA-to-SCSI bridge
>> in qemu, use this for emulating an IDE ATAPI drive, and merging the
>> missing features from the IDE implementation into the SCSI one.
>>
>> Skill level: intermediate
>>
>> (This would also help to implement advanced features like NCQ
>> autosense
>> or sense data reporting in the ATA emulation. Just in case someone's
>> daft enough trying to implement a ZAC emulation ...).
>>
>> And yes, I'd be willing to mentor it.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Hannes
>>
> 
> This would be very cool, and it might help make our admittedly weak
> ATAPI support stronger.
> 
> I've asked Paolo before if he thought I should try to merge the
> ATAPI and SCSI code, but he passed on the idea at the time. Might be
> something a GSoC student could take a stab at, though the maze of
> SCSI, IDE and ATAPI specs can be a little difficult to navigate at
> times.
> 
Don't tell me.
However, with IDE largely defunct you only have to concentrate on
T-13 and T-10, which means you have two reasonably well-defined
specs for both sides. Always a good place to start an implementation.

> If a bridge was designed to replace the current ATAPI code entirely,
> it would need to have some inter-operability with the AHCI code,
> which has its own unique quirks that we need to be mindful of.
> 
> It might wind up being a bit of a tall order, but it could be good fun.
> 
That's what I thought, too.
Let's see what happens ...

Cheers,

Hannes
-- 
Dr. Hannes Reinecke                            zSeries & Storage
address@hidden                                 +49 911 74053 688
SUSE LINUX GmbH, Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg
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