qemu-kvm setup questions
 

qemu-kvm apparently expects a couple of options in /etc/make.conf,
namely QEMU_SOFTMMU_TARGETS and QEMU_USER_TARGETS. The "documentation"
that I could find in Google is underwhelming, to say the least. I could
guess from the names alone that they "define targets"...dohhh. It could
use an example.

For instance, my physical machine (i.e. the host) is x86_64, running
64-bit Gentoo. I would like to emulate a 32-bit x86 (i386 ?). I will
be trying to run 32-bit Gentoo and OS/2 Warp 4. My uneducated guess is
QEMU_SOFTMMU_TARGETS="i386"
QEMU_USER_TARGETS="x86_64"

Is this correct? If not, what should I be using?

Also, are there any gotcha's for file access from the guest to the
host? Rather than re-downloading stuff all the time, I'm thinking of
giving the guest read-only access to the host's /usr/portage. That
should cover both syncing and distfiles. My only concern is how the
different profiles are handled, i.e. 64-bit versus 32-bit.

--
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>

qemu-kvm setup questions
 

On 07/01/2010 03:05 PM, waltdnes@waltdnes.org wrote:

qemu-kvm apparently expects a couple of options in /etc/make.conf,


I'm jumping in here only because no one else has, so far.

I'm the kind of nutcase who enjoys pulling and compiling the latest kernel
sources from Linus every morning, and then I struggle and curse while trying
to find the source of all the brand new bugs that just bit me.

So, quite obviously, I do the same with the qemu-kvm git repo at kernel.org.
(My only point here is that I don't build qemu-kvm from gentoo portage, so I
can't answer your questions about the gentoo make.conf variables.)

qemu-kvm does not come packaged with a cute and user-friendly gui for all the
confusing micro-configuration details like network bridging, and on and on,
ad nearly infinitum.

Both qemu-kvm and virtualbox are forks of the original qemu project, and
AFAICT they've stuck pretty closely to the original qemu command-line options
(numbering in the hundreds, it seems to me).

If you understand how to use the original qemu emulator, you are 99% of the
way to understanding how to use both qemu-kvm and virtualbox.

The big advantage of virtualbox is their creation of the "guest-additions"
that allow for trivially easy sharing of files on the host machine with the
guest machine.

The catch is that the virtualbox "guest additions" are custom-built for each
individual guest OS, and I don't know if OS/2 is one of the supported OS's
in virtualbox.

Being too lazy to dig in and learn the micro-details of qemu's networking,
whenever I want to share files on my gentoo host with a qemu-kvm guest, I
make a CD/iso image of the files and then mount the iso image on the guest
machine using the qemu -cdrom=/path/to/my/custom/image.iso flag.

I'm betting that there is a much better way of doing this, and I'm hoping
someone out there can educate both of us.

qemu-kvm setup questions
 

On 07/01/2010 08:53 PM, walt wrote:


The big advantage of virtualbox is their creation of the "guest-additions"
that allow for trivially easy sharing of files on the host machine with the
guest machine.

The catch is that the virtualbox "guest additions" are custom-built for each
individual guest OS, and I don't know if OS/2 is one of the supported OS's
in virtualbox.


I just checked the latest guest additions iso file and it does indeed have
support for OS/2. I have nothing against qemu-kvm, but virtualbox's guest
additions really do make life easier for file sharing and other nice things
like not capturing the mouse pointer and being able to resize the guest
window without changing the screen resolution of the guest.