Re: [PATCH 0/2] Remove 32-bit Xen PV guest support

[Andi Kleen]

Juergen Gross <jgross@xxxxxxxx> writes:

> The long term plan has been to replace Xen PV guests by PVH. The first
> victim of that plan are now 32-bit PV guests, as those are used only
> rather seldom these days. Xen on x86 requires 64-bit support and with
> Grub2 now supporting PVH officially since version 2.04 there is no
> need to keep 32-bit PV guest support alive in the Linux kernel.
> Additionally Meltdown mitigation is not available in the kernel running
> as 32-bit PV guest, so dropping this mode makes sense from security
> point of view, too.

Normally we have a deprecation period for feature removals like this.
You would make the kernel print a warning for some releases, and when
no user complains you can then remove. If a user complains you can't.

-Andi