[Libosinfo] [v2 1/8] API to query format of device driver

[Christophe Fergeau]

On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 04:03:12PM +0200, Zeeshan Ali (Khattak) wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 3:20 PM, Christophe Fergeau <cfergeau at redhat.com> wrote:
> > On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 at 05:38:27AM +0200, Zeeshan Ali (Khattak) wrote:
> >> Actually you and I both missed something important here: The libosinfo
> >> db doesn't just come from libosinfo. We allow downstream and apps to
> >> add to the DB. They can as well add new device drivers.
> >
> > Currently install scripts only support one format, so there is not much
> > point for downstream to add a driver in an unsupported format.
> 
> 1. With my patches, winxp will support one format for preinstall
> drivers and another for postinstall.

Hmm true, but both formats are of the type 'copy all listed files to the
installation disk, and libosinfo will know to make use of it'

> 2. How do apps find out which format is supported if they want to add
> more drivers? Currently, only by looking at the scripts themselves
> (which is more like asking them to read the source). It would
> definitely be desirable to have a simple API like this to query such
> info.

See my answer to your point 1.

> > I don't even
> > know if you can append easily information to an existing OS (as opposed to
> > overwriting an existing OS) to add a driver while keeping the existing
> > instal script.
> 
> Its pretty easy but even if its not, that is pretty irreverent. The
> relevant fact is that we support it. If its not easy, we can talk
> about it in another thread.

I'd s/we support it/we want to support it
I agree this is something that should be working, however this has seen so
little use that there are probably various issues with doing that. If such
a format thing is needed, that would just be another rough edge ;) But
until we add a driver format that is not of the type 'copy all files to
destination disk', I don't think we should try to provide an API for driver
formats.

> 
> > Adding another driver format requires patching libosinfo (schema/parsing
> > changes), so we'll know about it if that's needed, and then we can think
> > talk again about this API in light of this new format.
> 
> That is also not true. Any part of the DB can be extended, including
> addition of scripts and OSs.

Emphasis on the "format" part of "Adding another driver format", you seem
to have read "Adding another driver" here.

Christophe
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