[virt-tools-list] Re: [fedora-virt] ANNOUNCE: New release virt-manager 0.8.0

[Cole Robinson]

Ján ONDREJ (SAL) wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 03:02:53PM -0400, Cole Robinson wrote:
>>> - when tryed to force poweroff guest with older libvirt, guest was stopped,
>>>   but python exception was raised. After update of libvirt from virt-preview
>>>   repository this message disappeared.
>>>
>> Hmm, not sure about this. If you reproduce with the new libvirt, please
>> post the backtrace.
> 
> No, I can't reproduce with current libvirt. You can condider this fixed now.
> 
>>> - only one graph can be displayed. I have to choose, if I need network,
>>>   disk or CPU graph and only one can be displayed. With older version
>>>   there was multiple graphs available.
>>>
>> See comments above: we want to keep the manager view simple and small,
>> the proper way forward for this is a 'stats' screen.
> 
> Why user can't choose, which he want? If you allow to set only one column or
> set multiple of them, user can choose what is better for him.
> I prefer all graphs on one screen. It was useful in some real situations, so
> why to remove this and leave only very simple screen?
> 
> If you change View -> Graphs from radiobuttons to checkboxes, user can click
> any of them and select configuration, which is better for him.
> 

Hmm, I'll think about it. I guess it can't hurt much, as long as we keep the
single graph view as the default.

>> Someone actually just filed a bug about the 'apply' button issue. I'm
>> hesitant to change it because it would make the 'boot device' screen
>> have different behavior from the rest.
> 
> May be we need another solution, like changig boot order from Menu, ...
> 
>> If the qemu boot menu option worked, it would simplify the process,
>> though virt-manager may need to help the situation by specifying a boot
>> order, rather than a single boot device.
> 
> qemu's boot selection is not best solution. Sometimes I need to stop booting
> from network and always booting from network can restain me, because I need
> to wait for IP address, network connection and then select local boot or
> wait for timeout.
> 

Yeah, I'll have to play with it, I'm not entirely familiar with qemu's
capabilities wrt to boot menu and multiple boot options.

>> The destroy confirmation also needs a "Don't show this again" option, so
>> users can opt out. We can probably do this per VM, and also add a global
>> option to disable it.
> 
> And an configuration option to switch this on. May be configuration option
> is enough for start.
> 
>>> These are only suggestions for improvements. You can ignore them, if you
>>> consider it non useful. :-)
>>>
>> No way! This stuff is very useful.
> 
> Thank you. And some more comments:
> 
> - when installing WinXP, please readd "acpi" feature by default. Current KVM
>   has no problem with acpi and windows installs and run fine, but without
>   ACPI power button does not work and after shutdown there is only an
>   "You can safely turn off your computer" message. My virtual machine
>   have to be turn off manually by clicking force poweroff.
> 

Hmm, that should be the case now, but it won't change the settings for an
existing guest. Is ACPI not being enabled for newly created winxp guests?

> - where is "Memory usage" graph/image? This is missing in new version too.
>   This was very useful to know, how many memory is on host and how many
>   memory was used by each guest. Please, can you put it back?
> 

Part of the issue here is that the 'graph' wasn't very useful: memory
allocation rarely changes dynamically, so graphing doesn't help in this case.

Why exactly is this useful to know all the time? Do you change memory
allocations regularly, or create new guests regularly? It's not like the
memory amounts show were reporting _actual_ memory usage, just the upper limit
on memory assigned to the VM.

- Cole