Qemu revisited
I mentioned Qemu a short while back. I’ve used it in the past for testing linux livecds. After doing the writeup though I was encouraged to look at it again and see if/how much it’s improved since I last got an update. Wow….
For starters, I spent a bit of hairpulling but got the kqemu module working this time. kqemu is an accelerator module that interfaces directly with the kernel. It’s purported that qemu without the accelerator is 5-10x slower than the host machine, WITH the accelerator it’s in the ballpark of 1-2x slower. Not bad. I did try it and am impressed with the acceleration.
My test install was Windows 98 second edition. I installed to a 1 GB hard drive image and must say it performed as well as my old copy of Win4lin. I haven’t tried anything too fancy, but I did attempt starting qemu with the -user-net option which gave me easy seamless access to the internet from within the qemu OS. Very nice. I also tried it out with several other images (mostly cds) that I’ve collected.
One interesting feature of qemu is the ability to boot an existing disc or drive. For instance, you have an old dos boot floppy in your 3.5 inch drive, you can use qemu to boot from it, or your cdrom, or a hard drive. Obviously you want to be cautious about this on the primary drive, ( -snapshot is a handy switch), but it’s possible to do things which I would have otherwise thought were just impossible.
As I’ve said there is a windows version out now, although it’s in testing. It can really save you a lot of rebooting especially if you’re into testing or developing livecds. There is also a site called Free OS zoo, which provides some images for download of freely available (and distributable) operating systems. So you’ll find several linux variants there, some bsd variations and one darwin install (that I ran into some problems trying to untar.) These images will essentially save you from creating your own image and booting qemu up with “install media” and building it yourself. I think the free os zoo is an idea that REALLY could be expanded.
I didn’t get to play around with much more advanced networking because I discovered a strange problem with the tun driver on my desktop workstation. I’ll have to sort that out before I can get anything fancier than -user-net going.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Related Posts - The end for Windows 98 may be a boost to linux? There are articles out about the demise of official Windows 98 and ME support would be a boost to linux uptake. Realistically, I suppose it may, but I personally am not holding my breath. Here's why. 1) The people still running Windows 98/ME are likely doing so because that's what......
- Running Windows applications under Linux There are a number of Windows applications that may not have suitable replacements under linux. I know a lot of people that have considered switching, but there was "one program holding them back." Fortunately there are several options on how to keep that one application from holding you back. Well......
- Sleuthkit - windows and linux file recovery http://www.sleuthkit.org/ Sluethkit... is a collection of tools for forensic analysis of a system. Usually it's something that would be done when you've had a suspected rootkit on the system and you boot to another operating system with sluethkit installed (maybe livecd/etc.) and want to try to analyze and hunt for......
Related Websites - New Google Operating System Confirmed There have long been rumors of a Google Operating system. Last night those rumors were finally laid to rest with the announcement that a new Google operating system is in the works. If you ask me, the Google Chrome OS will really be nothing more than a Linux distribution. It......
- How To Save $100-$1,000 By Troubleshooting Your Faulty Computer “Oh, wow. Looks like it’s completely dead! At this point, it’s not even worth saving. You might as well just buy a new computer.” “Really, we can’t just fix it? It’s only 2 years old!” Have you ever had that conversation before? It’s pretty common at retail establishments like Best......
- Projecting the Right Image of Your Company Through Your Corporate Blog Few people realize how powerful a blog can be when it comes to projecting an image to the public. Words have a power all their own and the wrong ones may sink your company’s reputation. Before you even start your own corporate blog it is very important to first come......
Similar Posts
- QEMU with KQemu accelerator module
- Qemu 0.8.1 (with kqemu 1.3.0pre7)
- Qemu 0.8.1 speed improvement with -kernel-kqemu and kqemu 1.3.0pre7
- qemu for testing linux livecd’s
- Windows XP on Qemu roundup