Bug#825931: s390-netdevice virtio interface choice misleading
Hello,
On 31 May 2016 at 15:14, Viktor Mihajlovski <mihajlov@linux.vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
> Package: s390-netdevice
> Version: 0.0.44
> Severity: normal
> Tags: d-i patch
> X-Debbugs-CC: debian-s390@lists.debian.org, brueckner@linux.vnet.ibm.com
>
> Dear Maintainer,
>
> if an installation is attempted on a system with a PCI network interface
> only, it is necessary to select virtio as network interface to continue
> with the installation. This works because the virtio choice is
> effectively a NOP and both PCI and virtio interfaces don't need
> additional configuration. But it's also confusing.
> I'd like to suggest to replace the 'virtio' choice with 'other' for a
> better user experience (see attached patch).
> This has of course an impact on existing preseed configurations with
> s390-netdevice/choose_networktype=virtio but in the long run it might be
> better to accept the migration pain than to live with a multitude of
> semantically equivalent choices (kvm, pci, ...).
>
Ideally we would just create/migrate to a generic chzdev-udeb or some
such which can activate and set options for any ccw devices.
I find logic in s390-netdevice. The priority of many questions is too
high, thus e.g. if one uses qeth port 0, one has to explicitely
preseed that, even though a common case qeth port 0 will work in
majority (sensible default) cases.
Looking at the code it is impossible to configure IUCV. And there is
nothing to do in case of virtio. I think no questions should be even
asked if there are no CTC/QETH cards to activate. And be optional
similarly to how you propose in your patch.
For backwards compatibility we probably should still accept virtio key.
For consitency with the rest of the d-i it should be something like
Finish, or possibly Continue or Skip. Let me double check that.
The code in s390-netdevice appears to be from the pre PCI and pre
Virtio times when one really had to have a working network connection.
Overall the suggested patch is sensible.
> --
>
> Mit freundlichen Grüßen/Kind Regards
> Viktor Mihajlovski
>
> IBM Deutschland Research & Development GmbH
> Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: Martina Köderitz
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>
--
Regards,
Dimitri.
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