Can be used together with quickemu
π¦ dh GUI and TUI using yad
ποΈ quickfzf TUI using fzf
π² quicktui TUI using gum (π§ usable but under heavy development)
π
qrun TUI using gum
and
Enjoy...
Quickly create and run highly optimised desktop virtual machines for Linux, macOS and Windows; with different user interfaces to choose from. You decide what operating system you want to run tool will figure out the best way to do it for you.
The original objective of the project was to enable quick testing of Linux distributions where the virtual machine configurations can be stored anywhere, such as external USB storage or your home directory, and no elevated permissions are required to run the virtual machines. Quickemu now also includes comprehensive support for macOS and Windows.
- macOS Monterey, Big Sur, Catalina, Mojave & High Sierra
- Windows 10 and 11 including TPM 2.0
- Ubuntu and all the official Ubuntu flavours
- Over 360 operating system editions are supported!
- Full SPICE support including host/guest clipboard sharing
- VirtIO-webdavd file sharing for Linux and Windows guests
- VirtIO-9p file sharing for Linux and macOS guests
- QEMU Guest Agent support; provides access to a system-level agent via standard QMP commands
- Samba file sharing for Linux, macOS and Windows guests (if
smbd
is installed on the host) - VirGL acceleration
- USB device pass-through
- Smartcard pass-through
- Automatic SSH port forwarding to guests
- Network port forwarding
- Full duplex audio
- Braille support
- EFI (with or without SecureBoot) and Legacy BIOS boot
- Graphical user interfaces available
Quickemu is a wrapper for the excellent QEMU that attempts to automatically "do the right thing", rather than expose exhaustive configuration options.
- QEMU (6.0.0 or newer) with GTK, SDL, SPICE & VirtFS support
- bash (4.0 or newer)
- Coreutils
- EDK II
- grep
- jq
- LSB
- procps
- python3
- macrecovery
- mkisofs
- usbutils
- util-linux
- sed
- socat
- spicy
- swtpm
- Wget
- xdg-user-dirs
- xrandr
- zsync
- unzip
For Ubuntu, Arch and nixos systems the ppa, AUR or nix packaging will take care of the dependencies. For other host distributions or operating systems it will be necessary to install the above requirements or their equivalents.
These examples may save a little typing
Debian (and direct derivatives such as MX Linux):
sudo apt install qemu bash coreutils ovmf grep jq lsb-base procps python3 genisoimage usbutils util-linux sed spice-client-gtk libtss2-tcti-swtpm0 wget xdg-user-dirs zsync unzip
Fedora:
sudo dnf install qemu bash coreutils edk2-tools grep jq lsb procps python3 genisoimage usbutils util-linux sed spice-gtk-tools swtpm wget xdg-user-dirs xrandr unzip
MacOS:
This is a work in progress (see issue 248 for other steps and changes that may enable running on MacOS)
brew install qemu bash coreutils grep jq python@3.10 cdrtools gnu-sed spice-gtk wget zsync
While quickemu
and quickget
are designed for the terminal, a
graphical user interface is also available:
- Quickgui by Mark Johnson and Yannick Mauray.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannick-mauray/quickgui
sudo apt update
sudo apt install quickgui
From Nov 2023, there is also a multi option desktop integrated text interface, with lots of unique tools and utilities to help you make light work of installations, snapshots and disk management
- qqX is independently curated by Alex Genovese (see the github pages)
Quickemu is available from the AUR (Arch user repository), and can be installed via any AUR helper. Assuming your AUR helper is yay, Run the following command:
yay -Sy quickemu
Quickemu is available from a PPA for Ubuntu users. The Quickemu PPA also includes a back port of QEMU 6.0.0 for 20.04 (Focal) and 21.04 (Hirsute). To install Quickemu and all the dependencies run the following in a terminal:
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:flexiondotorg/quickemu
sudo apt update
sudo apt install quickemu
git clone --filter=blob:none https://github.com/wimpysworld/quickemu
cd quickemu
Now install all the Requirements documented above.
Repology.org found the following releases have been packaged.
quickget
will automatically download an Ubuntu release and create the
virtual machine configuration.
- Complete the installation as normal.
- Post-install:
- Install the SPICE agent (
spice-vdagent
) in the guest to enable copy/paste and USB redirectionsudo apt install spice-vdagent
- Install the SPICE WebDAV agent (
spice-webdavd
) in the guest to enable file sharing.sudo apt install spice-webdavd
- Install the SPICE agent (
quickget
can also download/refresh devel images via zsync
for Ubuntu
developers and testers.
You can run quickget ubuntu devel
to refresh your daily development
image as often as you like, it will even automatically switch to a new
series.
All the official Ubuntu flavours are supported, just replace ubuntu
with your preferred flavour.
edubuntu
(Edubuntu)kubuntu
(Kubuntu)lubuntu
(Lubuntu)ubuntu-budgie
(Ubuntu Budgie)ubuntucinnamon
(Ubuntu Cinnamon)ubuntukylin
(Ubuntu Kylin)ubuntu-mate
(Ubuntu MATE)ubuntu-server
(Ubuntu Server)ubuntustudio
(Ubuntu Studio)ubuntu
(Ubuntu)ubuntu-unity
(Ubuntu Unity)xubuntu
(Xubuntu)
You can also use quickget
with options to:
# show an OS ISO download URL
# test if and OS ISO is available
# open an OS distribution homepage in a browser
The --show-iso-url
and --test-iso-url
options do not work for
Windows
(quickget
will begin downloading the requested release and
edition of windows)
also supports:
alma
(Alma Linux)alpine
(Alpine Linux)android
(Android x86)antix
(Antix)archcraft
(Archcraft)archlinux
(Arch Linux)arcolinux
(Arco Linux)batocera
(Batocera)blendos
(BlendOS)bodhi
(Bodhi)bunsenlabs
(Bunsenlabs)cachyos
(CachyOS)centos-stream
(CentOS Stream)debian
(Debian)deepin
(Deepin)devuan
(Devuan)dragonflybsd
(DragonFlyBSD)elementary
(elementary OS)endeavouros
(EndeavourOS)endless
(Endless OS)fedora
(Fedora)freebsd
(FreeBSD)freedos
(FreeDOS)garuda
(Garuda Linux)gentoo
(Gentoo)ghostbsd
(GhostBSD)haiku
(Haiku)holoiso
(SteamOS HoloISO)kali
(Kali)kdeneon
(KDE Neon)kolibrios
(KolibriOS)linuxlite
(Linux Lite)linuxmint
(Linux Mint)lmde
(Linux Mint Debian Edition)mageia
(Mageia)manjaro
(Manjaro)mxlinux
(MX Linux)netboot
(netboot.xyz)netbsd
(NetBSD)nixos
(NixOS)openbsd
(OpenBSD)openindiana
(OpenIndiana)opensuse
(openSUSE)oraclelinux
(Oracle Linux)peppermint
(PeppermintOS)popos
(Pop!_OS)porteus
(Porteus)reactos
(ReactOS)rebornos
(RebornOS)rockylinux
(Rocky Linux)siduction
(Siduction)slackware
(Slackware)solus
(Solus)spiral
(Spiral)tails
(Tails)tinycore
(Tiny Core Linux)trisquel
(Trisquel)truenas-core
(TrueNAS Core)truenas-scale
(TrueNAS Scale)vanillaos
(Vanilla OS)void
(Void Linux)vxlinux
(VX Linux)xerolinux
(XeroLinux)zorin
(Zorin OS)
Or you can download a Linux image and manually create a VM configuration.
- Download a .iso image of a Linux distribution
- Create a VM configuration file
- Complete the installation as normal.
- Post-install:
- Install the SPICE agent (
spice-vdagent
) in the guest to enable copy/paste and USB redirection. - Install the SPICE WebDAV agent (
spice-webdavd
) in the guest to enable file sharing.
- Install the SPICE agent (
quickget
automatically downloads a macOS recovery image and creates a
virtual machine configuration.
macOS high-sierra
, mojave
, catalina
, big-sur
, monterey
and
ventura
are supported.
- Use cursor keys and enter key to select the macOS Base System
- From macOS Utilities
- Click Disk Utility and Continue
- Select
QEMU HARDDISK Media
(~103.08GB) from the list (on Big Sur and above useApple Inc. VirtIO Block Device
) and click Erase. - Enter a
Name:
for the disk - If you are installing macOS Mojave or later (Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey and Ventura), choose any of the APFS options as the filesystem. MacOS Extended may not work.
- Select
- Click Erase.
- Click Done.
- Close Disk Utility
- Click Disk Utility and Continue
- From macOS Utilities
- Click Reinstall macOS and Continue
- Complete the installation as you normally would.
- On the first reboot use cursor keys and enter key to select macOS Installer
- On the subsequent reboots use cursor keys and enter key to select the disk you named
- Once you have finished installing macOS you will be presented with an the out-of-the-box first-start wizard to configure various options and set up your username and password
- OPTIONAL: After you have concluded the out-of-the-box wizard, you
may want to enable the TRIM feature that the computer industry
created for SSD disks. This feature in our macOS installation will
allow QuickEmu to compact (shrink) your macOS disk image whenever
you delete files inside the Virtual Machine. Without this step your
macOS disk image will only ever get larger and will not shrink even
when you delete lots of data inside macOS.
- To enable TRIM, open the Terminal application and type the following command followed by pressing command on the hard disk when files are deleted:
sudo trimforce enable
You will be prompted to enter your account's password to gain the privilege needed. Once you've entered your password and pressed in the form of two questions that require you to type response as though you said "no":
IMPORTANT NOTICE: This tool force-enables TRIM for all relevant attached devices, even though such devices may not have been validated for data integrity while using TRIM. Use of this tool to enable TRIM may result in unintended data loss or data corruption. It should not be used in a commercial operating environment or with important data. Before using this tool, you should back up all of your data and regularly back up data while TRIM is enabled. This tool is provided on an "as is" basis. APPLE MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, REGARDING THIS TOOL OR ITS USE ALONE OR IN COMBINATION WITH YOUR DEVICES, SYSTEMS, OR SERVICES. BY USING THIS TOOL TO ENABLE TRIM, YOU AGREE THAT, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, USE OF THE TOOL IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK AND THAT THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO SATISFACTORY QUALITY, PERFORMANCE, ACCURACY AND EFFORT IS WITH YOU.
Are you sure you with to proceed (y/N)?
And a second confirmation once you've confirmed the previous one:
Your system will immediately reboot when this is complete.
Is this OK (y/N)?
As the last message states, your system will automatically reboot as soon as the command completes.
The default macOS configuration looks like this:
guest_os="macos"
img="macos-catalina/RecoveryImage.img"
disk_img="macos-catalina/disk.qcow2"
macos_release="catalina"
guest_os="macos"
instructs Quickemu to optimise for macOS.macos_release="catalina"
instructs Quickemu to optimise for a particular macOS release.- For example VirtIO Network and Memory Ballooning are available in Big Sur and newer, but not previous releases.
- And VirtIO Block Media (disks) are supported/stable in Catalina and newer.
There are some considerations when running macOS via Quickemu.
- Supported macOS releases:
- High Sierra
- Mojave
- Catalina (Recommended)
- Big Sur
- Monterey
- Ventura
quickemu
will automatically download the required OpenCore bootloader and OVMF firmware from OSX-KVM.- Optimised by default, but no GPU acceleration is available.
- Host CPU vendor is detected and guest CPU is optimised accordingly.
- VirtIO Block Media is used for the system disk where supported.
- VirtIO
usb-tablet
is used for the mouse. - VirtIO Network (
virtio-net
) is supported and enabled on macOS Big Sur and newer but previous releases usevmxnet3
. - VirtIO Memory Ballooning is supported and enabled on macOS Big Sur and newer but disabled for other support macOS releases.
- USB host and SPICE pass-through is:
- UHCI (USB 2.0) on macOS Catalina and earlier.
- XHCI (USB 3.0) on macOS Big Sur and newer.
- Display resolution can only be changed via macOS System Preferences.
- Full Duplex audio requires VoodooHDA OC or pass-through a USB audio-device to the macOS guest VM.
- NOTE! Gatekeeper and System Integrity Protection (SIP) need to be disabled to install VoodooHDA OC
- File sharing between guest and host is available via virtio-9p and SPICE webdavd.
- Copy/paste via SPICE agent is not available on macOS.
If you see "Your device or computer could not be verified" when you
try to login to the App Store, make sure that your wired ethernet device
is en0
. Use ifconfig
in a terminal to verify this.
If the wired ethernet device is not en0
, then then go to System
Preferences -> Network, delete all the network devices and apply the
changes. Next, open a terminal and run the following:
sudo rm /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist
Now reboot, and the App Store should work.
can download Windows10 and Windows 11 automatically and create an optimised virtual machine configuration. This configuration also includes the VirtIO drivers for Windows.
Windows 8.1 is also supported but doesn't feature any automated installation or driver optimisation.
- Complete the installation as you normally would.
- All relevant drivers and services should be installed automatically.
- A local administrator user account is automatically created, with
these credentials:
- Username:
Quickemu
- Password:
quickemu
- Username:
The default Windows 11 configuration looks like this:
guest_os="windows"
disk_img="windows-11/disk.qcow2"
iso="windows-11/windows-11.iso"
fixed_iso="windows-11/virtio-win.iso"
tpm="on"
secureboot="off"
guest_os="windows"
instructsquickemu
to optimise for Windows.fixed_iso=
specifies the ISO image that provides VirtIO drivers.tpm="on"
instructsquickemu
to create a software emulated TPM device usingswtpm
.
The following features are available while using the SPICE protocol:
- Copy/paste between the guest and host
- Host file sharing to the guest
- USB device redirection
To use SPICE add --display spice
to the Quickemu invocation, this
requires that the spicy
client is installed, available from the
spice-client-gtk
package in Debian/Ubuntu.
quickemu --vm ubuntu-22.04.conf --display spice
To enable copy/paste with a Windows guest, install SPICE Windows guest tools in the guest VM.
To start a VM with SPICE enabled, but no display attached use
--display none
. This requires that the spicy
client is installed,
available from the spice-client-gtk
package in Debian/Ubuntu to
connect to the running VM
quickemu --vm ubuntu-22.04.conf --display none
You can also use the .ports
file in the VM directory to lookup what
SSH and SPICE ports the VM is connected to.
cat ubuntu-22.04/ubuntu-22.04.ports
If, for example, the SSH port is set to 22220, and assuming your VM has a started SSH service (details vary by OS), you can typically SSH into it from the host as follows:
ssh -p 22220 your_vm_user@localhost
Qemu provides support for using BrlAPI to display braille output on a real or fake device.
quickemu --vm ubuntu-22.04.conf --braille --display sdl
Since Quickemu 2.1.0 efi
is the default boot option. If you want to
override this behaviour then add the following line to you VM
configuration to enable legacy BIOS.
boot="legacy"
- Enable Legacy BIOS boot
By default, Quickemu will calculate the number of CPUs cores and RAM to allocate to a VM based on the specifications of your host computer. You can override this default behaviour and tune the VM configuration to your liking.
Add additional lines to your virtual machine configuration:
cpu_cores="4"
- Specify the number of CPU cores allocated to the VMram="4G"
- Specify the amount of RAM to allocate to the VMdisk_size="16G"
- Specify the size of the virtual disk allocated to the VM
Preallocation mode (allowed values: off
(default), metadata
,
falloc
, full
). An image with preallocated metadata is initially
larger but can improve performance when the image needs to grow.
Specify what disk preallocation should be used, if any, when creating the system disk image by adding a line like this to your VM configuration.
preallocation="metadata"
If you want to expose an ISO image from the host to guest add the following line to the VM configuration:
fixed_iso="/path/to/image.iso"
If you're like Alan Pope you'll probably want to mount a floppy disk image in the guest. To do so add the following line to the VM configuration:
floppy="/path/to/floppy.img"
All File Sharing options will only expose ~/Public
(or localised
variations) for the current user to the guest VMs.
If smbd
is available on the host, Quickemu will automatically enable
the built-in QEMU support for exposing a Samba share from the host to
the guest.
You can install the minimal Samba components on Ubuntu using:
sudo apt install --no-install-recommends samba
If everything is set up correctly, the smbd
address will be printed
when the virtual machine is started. For example:
- smbd: On guest: smb://10.0.2.4/qemu
If using a Windows guest, right-click on "This PC", click "Add a network
location", and paste this address, removing smb:
and replacing forward
slashes with backslashes (in this example \\10.0.2.4\qemu
).
- TBD
- TBD
Add an additional line to your virtual machine configuration. For example:
port_forwards=("8123:8123" "8888:80")
In the example above:
- Port 8123 on the host is forwarded to port 8123 on the guest.
- Port 8888 on the host is forwarded to port 80 on the guest.
To completely disable all network interfaces in a guest VM add this additional line to your virtual machine configuration:
network="none"
You can isolate the guest from the host (and broader network) using the restrict option, which will restrict networking to just the guest and any virtual devices.
This can be used to prevent software running inside the guest from phoning home while still providing a network inside the guest. Add this additional line to your virtual machine configuration:
network="restrict"
Connect your virtual machine to a preconfigured network bridge. Add an additional line to your virtual machine configuration:
network="br0"
If you want to have a persistent MAC address for your bridged network
interface in the guest VM you can add macaddr
to the virtual machine
configuration. QEMU requires that the MAC address is in the range:
52:54:00:AB:00:00 - 52:54:00:AB:FF:FF
So you can generate your own MAC addresses with:
macaddr="52:54:00:AB:51:AE"
Quickemu supports USB redirection via SPICE pass-through and host pass-through.
Using SPICE for USB pass-through is easiest as it doesn't require any
elevated permission, start Quickemu with --display spice
and then
select Input
-> Select USB Device for redirection
from the menu to
choose which device(s) you want to attach to the guest.
USB host redirection is not recommended, it is provided purely for backwards compatibility to older versions of Quickemu. Using SPICE is preferred, see above.
Add an additional line to your virtual machine configuration. For example:
usb_devices=("046d:082d" "046d:085e")
In the example above:
- The USB device with vendor_id 046d and product_id 082d will be exposed to the guest.
- The USB device with vendor_id 046d and product_id 085e will be exposed to the guest.
If the USB devices are not writable, quickemu
will display the
appropriate commands to modify the USB device(s) access permissions,
like this:
- USB: Host pass-through requested:
- Sennheiser Communications EPOS GTW 270 on bus 001 device 005 needs permission changes:
sudo chown -v root:user /dev/bus/usb/001/005
ERROR! USB permission changes are required π
Since Quickemu 2.2.0 a software emulated TPM device can be added to
guest virtual machines. Just add tpm="on"
to your VM configuration.
quickget
will automatically add this line to Windows 11 virtual
machines.
Here are the usage instructions:
Usage
quickemu --vm ubuntu.conf
You can also pass optional parameters
--access : Enable remote spice access support. 'local' (default), 'remote', 'clientipaddress'
--braille : Enable braille support. Requires SDL.
--delete-disk : Delete the disk image and EFI variables
--delete-vm : Delete the entire VM and it's configuration
--display : Select display backend. 'sdl' (default), 'gtk', 'none', 'spice' or 'spice-app'
--fullscreen : Starts VM in full screen mode (Ctl+Alt+f to exit)
--ignore-msrs-always : Configure KVM to always ignore unhandled machine-specific registers
--screen <screen> : Use specified screen to determine the window size.
--screenpct <percent> : Percent of fullscreen for VM if --fullscreen is not specified.
--shortcut : Create a desktop shortcut
--snapshot apply <tag> : Apply/restore a snapshot.
--snapshot create <tag> : Create a snapshot.
--snapshot delete <tag> : Delete a snapshot.
--snapshot info : Show disk/snapshot info.
--status-quo : Do not commit any changes to disk/snapshot.
--viewer <viewer> : Choose an alternative viewer. @Options: 'spicy' (default), 'remote-viewer', 'none'
--ssh-port <port> : Set ssh-port manually
--spice-port <port> : Set spice-port manually
--public-dir <path> : Expose share directory. @Options: '' (default: xdg-user-dir PUBLICSHARE), '<directory>', 'none'
--monitor <type> : Set monitor connection type. @Options: 'socket' (default), 'telnet', 'none'
--monitor-telnet-host <ip/host> : Set telnet host for monitor. (default: 'localhost')
--monitor-telnet-port <port> : Set telnet port for monitor. (default: '4440')
--monitor-cmd <cmd> : Send command to monitor if available. (Example: system_powerdown)
--serial <type> : Set serial connection type. @Options: 'socket' (default), 'telnet', 'none'
--serial-telnet-host <ip/host> : Set telnet host for serial. (default: 'localhost')
--serial-telnet-port <port> : Set telnet port for serial. (default: '6660')
--keyboard <type> : Set keyboard. @Options: 'usb' (default), 'ps2', 'virtio'
--keyboard_layout <layout> : Set keyboard layout.
--mouse <type> : Set mouse. @Options: 'tablet' (default), 'ps2', 'usb', 'virtio'
--usb-controller <type> : Set usb-controller. @Options: 'ehci' (default), 'xhci', 'none'
--sound-card <type> : Set sound card. @Options: 'intel-hda' (default), 'ac97', 'es1370', 'sb16', 'none'
--extra_args <arguments> : Pass additional arguments to qemu
--version : Print version
Desktop shortcuts can be created for a VM, the shortcuts are saved in
~/.local/share/applications
. Here is an example of how to create a
shortcut.
quickemu --vm ubuntu-22.04-desktop.conf --shortcut
qemu
will always default to the primary monitor to display the VM's
window.
Without the --screen
option, quickemu
will look for the size of the
smallest monitor, and use a size that fits on said monitor.
The --screen
option forces quickemu
to use the size of the given
monitor to compute the size of the window. It won't use that monitor
to display the VM's window if it's not the primary monitor. This is
useful if the primary monitor if not the smallest one, and if the VM's
window doesn't need to be moved around.
The --screen
option is also useful with the --fullscreen
option,
again because qemu
will always use the primary monitor. In order for
the fullscreen mode to work properly, the resolution of the VM's window
must match the resolution of the screen.
To know which screen to use, type:
xrandr --listmonitors | grep -v Monitors
The command will output something like this:
0: +*HDMI-0 2560/597x1440/336+1920+0 HDMI-0
1: +DVI-D-0 1920/527x1080/296+0+0 DVI-D-0
The first number is what needs to be passed to the --screen
option.
For example:
quickemu --vm vm.conf --screen 0
The above uses the 2560x1440 screen to compute the size of the window,
which Quickemu sizes to 2048x1152. Without the --screen
option,
Quickemu would have used the 1920x1080 monitor which results in a window
size of 1664x936.
The '--screenpct' is an optional integer value between 25 <= pct < 100 which will override system default screen sizes. The VM size will be 'pct' of the chosen screen. If --fullscreen is chosen screen will be fullsize instead of being scaled down by --screenpct value.
Useful reference that assisted the development of Quickemu.
- General
- macOS
- https://www.nicksherlock.com/2020/06/installing-macos-big-sur-on-proxmox/
- https://passthroughpo.st/mac-os-adds-early-support-for-virtio-qemu/
- https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM
- https://github.com/thenickdude/KVM-Opencore
- https://github.com/acidanthera/OpenCorePkg/tree/master/Utilities/macrecovery
- https://www.kraxel.org/blog/2017/09/running-macos-as-guest-in-kvm/
- https://www.nicksherlock.com/2017/10/passthrough-of-advanced-cpu-features-for-macos-high-sierra-guests/
- http://philjordan.eu/osx-virt/
- https://github.com/Dids/clover-builder
- OpenCore Configurator
- Windows
- https://www.heiko-sieger.info/running-windows-10-on-linux-using-kvm-with-vga-passthrough/
- https://leduccc.medium.com/improving-the-performance-of-a-windows-10-guest-on-qemu-a5b3f54d9cf5
- https://frontpagelinux.com/tutorials/how-to-use-linux-kvm-to-optimize-your-windows-10-virtual-machine/
- https://turlucode.com/qemu-command-line-args/
- https://github.com/pbatard/Fido
- https://www.catapultsystems.com/blogs/create-zero-touch-windows-10-iso/
- TPM
- 9p & virtiofs