Re: Let's remove some deprecated stuff

[Alistair Francis]

On Thu, Apr 29, 2021 at 8:00 PM Markus Armbruster <armbru@redhat.com> wrote:
>
> If you're cc'ed, you added a section to docs/system/deprecated.rst that
> is old enough to permit removal.  This is *not* a demand to remove, it's
> a polite request to consider whether the time for removal has come.
> Extra points for telling us in a reply.  "We should remove, but I can't
> do it myself right now" is a valid answer.  Let's review the file:
>
>     System emulator command line arguments
>     --------------------------------------
>
> Kővágó, Zoltán:
>
>     ``QEMU_AUDIO_`` environment variables and ``-audio-help`` (since 4.0)
>     '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
>
>     The ``-audiodev`` argument is now the preferred way to specify audio
>     backend settings instead of environment variables.  To ease migration to
>     the new format, the ``-audiodev-help`` option can be used to convert
>     the current values of the environment variables to ``-audiodev`` options.
>
> Kővágó, Zoltán:
>
>     Creating sound card devices and vnc without ``audiodev=`` property (since 
> 4.2)
>     
> ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
>
>     When not using the deprecated legacy audio config, each sound card
>     should specify an ``audiodev=`` property.  Additionally, when using
>     vnc, you should specify an ``audiodev=`` property if you plan to
>     transmit audio through the VNC protocol.
>
> Gerd Hoffmann:
>
>     Creating sound card devices using ``-soundhw`` (since 5.1)
>     ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
>
>     Sound card devices should be created using ``-device`` instead.  The
>     names are the same for most devices.  The exceptions are ``hda`` which
>     needs two devices (``-device intel-hda -device hda-duplex``) and
>     ``pcspk`` which can be activated using ``-machine
>     pcspk-audiodev=<name>``.
>
> [...]
>
> Alistair Francis:
>
>     RISC-V ``-bios`` (since 5.1)
>     ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
>
>     QEMU 4.1 introduced support for the -bios option in QEMU for RISC-V for 
> the
>     RISC-V virt machine and sifive_u machine. QEMU 4.1 had no changes to the
>     default behaviour to avoid breakages.
>
>     QEMU 5.1 changes the default behaviour from ``-bios none`` to ``-bios 
> default``.
>
>     QEMU 5.1 has three options:
>      1. ``-bios default`` - This is the current default behavior if no -bios 
> option
>           is included. This option will load the default OpenSBI firmware 
> automatically.
>           The firmware is included with the QEMU release and no user 
> interaction is
>           required. All a user needs to do is specify the kernel they want to 
> boot
>           with the -kernel option
>      2. ``-bios none`` - QEMU will not automatically load any firmware. It is 
> up
>           to the user to load all the images they need.
>      3. ``-bios <file>`` - Tells QEMU to load the specified file as the 
> firmwrae.
>

This has already been acted upon in the code, we now default to
including a "bios" with RISC-V softmmu which is what this is
describing.

Do we need to take any action to indicate that it's already in effect?

Alistair