Re: [PATCH v2 1/3] docs/booting.rst: start documenting the boot process

[Alex Bennée]

Peter Maydell <peter.maydell@linaro.org> writes:

> On Wed, 1 Jul 2020 at 17:16, Alex Bennée <alex.bennee@linaro.org> wrote:
>>
>> While working on some test cases I realised there was quite a lot of
>> assumed knowledge about how things boot up. I thought it would be
>> worth gathering this together in a user facing document where we could
>> pour in the details and background to the boot process. As it's quite
>> wordy I thought it should be a separate document to the manual (which
>> can obviously reference this).
>>
>> The document follows the socratic method and leaves the reader to ask
>> themselves some questions in an effort to elucidate them about any
>> problems they may be having.
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Alex Bennée <alex.bennee@linaro.org>
>> Message-Id: <20190308211557.22589-1-alex.bennee@linaro.org>
>>
>
> I have some typo/grammar nits below, but more significantly:
> I don't really see why this is a bit of QEMU's documentation
> rather than, say, a blog post.

The aim was to make it an initial overview so when people ask about why
they can't boot their systems they have considered the questions at the
end. It does seem to be a repeating topic on the IRC channel.

> It doesn't really say much
> about QEMU in particular. It's also rather vague about
> what guest architecture it's talking about, and they can
> differ significantly both in the real world and in how QEMU
> handles them.

Perhaps what we really need is a shorter punchier section offering
guidance in the manual itself? It just seemed quite a big topic which is
why I ended up with a fairly long explanation without even getting to
specifics.

I could certainly see the document being expanded in the future with
more concrete examples for various architectures and scenarios.

> Also, why put it in interop?

interop being where QEMU interfaces with other things such as kernels
and firmwares? It seems too user focused for devel and too long for the
manual itself.

-- 
Alex Bennée