[syslinux] virtio console support feasible?

[H. Peter Anvin]

On 08/22/2013 10:12 AM, Ferenc Wagner wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I boot lots of headless virtual machines through Syslinux, and it
> bothers me that serial emulation must be turned on for the sake of
> bootloader interaction only.  Would it be feasible to add virtio console
> support to Syslinux besides VGA and serial console?  Some PCI utility
> functions are certainly there, but is the current architecture up to
> early PCI I/O?  Or is this something that the BIOS should emulate, just
> like it makes virtio disks accessible via standard interrupts?
> 

BIOS emulation would definitely be better.  virtio is really not the
best protocol for console access (it is much too heavyweight), but it is
definitely *doable*.

	-hpa