3 ms·

I tried QEMU on my Linux laptop to try to use a Windows VM for testing some of my projects... it was extremely slow, difficult to setup, and after I restarted m

by brabel 7y ago

I tried QEMU on my Linux laptop to try to use a Windows VM for testing some of my projects... it was extremely slow, difficult to setup, and after I restarted my laptop, the VM wouldn't boot anymore... googling the error, I just found some people asking for lots of magic commands to be run, then I was supposed to understand the error and run some more commands appropriately to fix things... I just uninstalled QEMU instead. I get it that this is the Linux experience :D you fix stuff by knowing your CLI... but this makes it a huge time-waster for times when all you want is test your actual product. Is this experience typical for anyone else? Or am I, after all these years using Linux, still challenged on the terminal and need to tough the hell up?

NullPrefix 7y ago
>lots of magic commands You didn't bother to read the manual and somehow that's not your fault?
- brabel 7y ago
  The manual for what? KVM? QEMU? The other 500 commands people mentioned?
  - NullPrefix 7y ago
    Would you be willing to share any of these commands?
structural 7y ago
I think most of your issues are equating "QEMU == vmware player" or something like this. It's really not: as a matter of fact, QEMU is just a processor emulator, in software. It's not a full-operating-system VM environment at all and can be (and is) used for things like running a single binary without virtualization. Why is this confusing? What you're really looking for is KVM, which -is- a hypervisor that uses the processor's virtualization instructions to implement a complete virtual machine. And then QEMU has a backend, for x86/x86_64, that uses KVM to accelerate its processor virtualization (and I believe some hardware support as well). Using KVM through QEMU at least gives you a command line interface to do things instead of "write a C program to talk to the kernel API", but this is still far from the level of a tool that a desktop user would want to use. QEMU+KVM is basically at the level of one of the random barely-documented executables that you'd see in the installation of a VM software package. So what should you use here? The next layer up is libvirt, which provides a system-level daemon to talk to (so you're not just running an emulator from a terminal that exits when you close the terminal) and a command shell & configuration files for defining machines, networks, storage, and so on. Still not a great UX, but at least now you're at the level of being able to define and run a machine. Many users are going to manage these things through a wizard-based or graphical workflow instead of a CLI, so there's applications like Boxes that's built into GNOME (https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Boxes https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Boxes) or virt-manager (https://virt-manager.org/ https://virt-manager.org/) which is desktop-agnostic. Both of these also help with establishing a graphical interface to the virtual machine itself, if necessary.
stragies 7y ago
Installing Windows in a VM on a brand-new laptop in 8 steps: * Curse your hardware purchasing choice if you have Broadcom or NVidia, because they add (non-dramatic) steps. * Make sure, everything Virt-related is enabled in the BIOS/UEFI * Install normal debian default system * Install virt-manager, libvirt0, qemu-kvm * Add your desktop user to system groups kvm and libvirt * Download Windows Iso and Virtio-Drivers iso * Create new virtual machine, make sure everything possible is set to "VirtIO", mount both ISOs from above as 2 CDROM drives. * Install Windows, let it search the VirtIO CD for drivers * Done, total time less than 2 hours on a machine newer than 2015. (No command line required. Just don't use a linux installer from x years ago, but a recent one, e.g. Debian Buster)
- brabel 7y ago
  That's basically what I did... and you're right, took me around 2 hours. The problem is that when I re-booted the machine, the VM just didn't work anymore and nothing I did would bring it back to life. I could have spent another 2 hours re-doing everything, if I had infinite amounts of time to play with this stuff, but I don't.

by brabel 7y ago

NullPrefix 7y ago

>lots of magic commands You didn't bother to read the manual and somehow that's not your fault?

brabel 7y ago
The manual for what? KVM? QEMU? The other 500 commands people mentioned?
- NullPrefix 7y ago
  Would you be willing to share any of these commands?

structural 7y ago

I think most of your issues are equating "QEMU == vmware player" or something like this. It's really not: as a matter of fact, QEMU is just a processor emulator, in software. It's not a full-operating-system VM environment at all and can be (and is) used for things like running a single binary without virtualization. Why is this confusing? What you're really looking for is KVM, which -is- a hypervisor that uses the processor's virtualization instructions to implement a complete virtual machine. And then QEMU has a backend, for x86/x86_64, that uses KVM to accelerate its processor virtualization (and I believe some hardware support as well). Using KVM through QEMU at least gives you a command line interface to do things instead of "write a C program to talk to the kernel API", but this is still far from the level of a tool that a desktop user would want to use. QEMU+KVM is basically at the level of one of the random barely-documented executables that you'd see in the installation of a VM software package. So what should you use here? The next layer up is libvirt, which provides a system-level daemon to talk to (so you're not just running an emulator from a terminal that exits when you close the terminal) and a command shell & configuration files for defining machines, networks, storage, and so on. Still not a great UX, but at least now you're at the level of being able to define and run a machine. Many users are going to manage these things through a wizard-based or graphical workflow instead of a CLI, so there's applications like Boxes that's built into GNOME (https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Boxes https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Boxes) or virt-manager (https://virt-manager.org/ https://virt-manager.org/) which is desktop-agnostic. Both of these also help with establishing a graphical interface to the virtual machine itself, if necessary.

stragies 7y ago

Installing Windows in a VM on a brand-new laptop in 8 steps: * Curse your hardware purchasing choice if you have Broadcom or NVidia, because they add (non-dramatic) steps. * Make sure, everything Virt-related is enabled in the BIOS/UEFI * Install normal debian default system * Install virt-manager, libvirt0, qemu-kvm * Add your desktop user to system groups kvm and libvirt * Download Windows Iso and Virtio-Drivers iso * Create new virtual machine, make sure everything possible is set to "VirtIO", mount both ISOs from above as 2 CDROM drives. * Install Windows, let it search the VirtIO CD for drivers * Done, total time less than 2 hours on a machine newer than 2015. (No command line required. Just don't use a linux installer from x years ago, but a recent one, e.g. Debian Buster)

brabel 7y ago
That's basically what I did... and you're right, took me around 2 hours. The problem is that when I re-booted the machine, the VM just didn't work anymore and nothing I did would bring it back to life. I could have spent another 2 hours re-doing everything, if I had infinite amounts of time to play with this stuff, but I don't.