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authorBin Meng <bin.meng@windriver.com>2022-07-19 21:50:14 +0800
committerPaolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>2022-07-22 19:01:44 +0200
commitb67de91e0d4cae883a038f31b2207a1aaef5e51c (patch)
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parent5288bee45fbd33203b61f8c76e41b15bb5913e6e (diff)
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docs: Add caveats for Windows as the build platform
Commit cf60ccc3306c ("cutils: Introduce bundle mechanism") introduced a Python script to populate a bundle directory using os.symlink() to point to the binaries in the pc-bios directory of the source tree. Commit 882084a04ae9 ("datadir: Use bundle mechanism") removed previous logic in pc-bios/meson.build to create a link/copy of pc-bios binaries in the build tree so os.symlink() is the way to go. However os.symlink() may fail [1] on Windows if an unprivileged Windows user started the QEMU build process, which results in QEMU executables generated in the build tree not able to load the default BIOS/firmware images due to symbolic links not present in the bundle directory. This commits updates the documentation by adding such caveats for users who want to build QEMU on the Windows platform. [1] https://docs.python.org/3/library/os.html#os.symlink Signed-off-by: Bin Meng <bin.meng@windriver.com> Reviewed-by: Stefan Weil <sw@weilnetz.de> Reviewed-by: Akihiko Odaki <akihiko.odaki@gmail.com> Message-Id: <20220719135014.764981-1-bmeng.cn@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
Diffstat (limited to 'docs/about')
-rw-r--r--docs/about/build-platforms.rst10
1 files changed, 9 insertions, 1 deletions
diff --git a/docs/about/build-platforms.rst b/docs/about/build-platforms.rst
index ebde20f..6b8496c 100644
--- a/docs/about/build-platforms.rst
+++ b/docs/about/build-platforms.rst
@@ -94,8 +94,16 @@ not tested anymore, so it is recommended to use one of the latest versions of
Windows instead.
The project supports building QEMU with current versions of the MinGW
-toolchain, either hosted on Linux (Debian/Fedora) or via MSYS2 on Windows.
+toolchain, either hosted on Linux (Debian/Fedora) or via `MSYS2`_ on Windows.
+A more recent Windows version is always preferred as it is less likely to have
+problems with building via MSYS2. The building process of QEMU involves some
+Python scripts that call os.symlink() which needs special attention for the
+build process to successfully complete. On newer versions of Windows 10,
+unprivileged accounts can create symlinks if Developer Mode is enabled.
+When Developer Mode is not available/enabled, the SeCreateSymbolicLinkPrivilege
+privilege is required, or the process must be run as an administrator.
.. _Homebrew: https://brew.sh/
.. _MacPorts: https://www.macports.org/
+.. _MSYS2: https://www.msys2.org/
.. _Repology: https://repology.org/