On Wed, 2015-09-02 at 16:08 -0400, Laine Stump wrote:
* change the default for all architectures (except arm) instead of just ppc64
Are we certain we want to do this even for x86 guests? I don't think it's a good idea - it makes the default into something for which no driver exists on the install media for *many* x86 guests, meaning it is highly likely that a "default" config would have non-functional networking. AFAIR this is why we didn't make virtio the default several years ago when we began recording a default into the XML (and why the last time changing the default was discussed, I believe it was pointing more towards something like e1000, i.e. something which 1) we are certain has a driver on every guest OS installation media that might be found, 2) is better maintained in qemu than the rtl8139, and 3) performs better than rtl8139 (although obviously not as good as virtio).
Good point. We could switch the default to virtio just for ppc64 then, leaving the capability check in place of course, and change the global default from rtl8139 to e1000 in a separate series. How does this sound? Cheers. -- Andrea Bolognani Software Engineer - Virtualization Team