Re: [Qemu-devel] RFC for new features

[Johannes Schindelin]

Hi,

On Thu, 8 Jul 2004, Thomas Munn wrote:
> 1.  Definately a DISK manager/compressor ala vmware disk images (so I
> don't have to waste 4+gb if I don't have a full fileysystem!)

Fabrice already mentioned that, right? I would favor using cloop devices,
i.e. using the toolset from cloop to create compressed "devices". Knoppix
uses this system to pack much more than 700MB on a CD.

The advantage of cloop as compared to gzip'ed filesystem: Everytime you
seek in the file, with gzip you have to either have stored a certain zlib
state or decompress the whole file up to that point. With cloop this
problem is solved.

> 2.  Command line support for restoring state files (instead of having
> to start and then load state in monitor machines) -state filename?

This is the "-V" option in the VNC patch. For this to work we also need a
save handler for the keyboard. I will prepare that patch later today.

The config file came up a few times. I don't know. For those who
absolutely have to have it, maybe just a file which has exactly the same
syntax as the command line so you don't have to learn two ways to say the
same thing. For sure not an overkill like XML! The extended markup
language is good to markup complex structures, certainly not something as
trivial as a qemu command line.

The Ctrl-Shift-F2 monitor thing is a cute idea, but I really would like to
at least optionally retain the old style monitor.

Ciao,
Dscho