Half the time when you’re using QEMU - you’re not even aware of it…
KVM also makes extensive use of QEMU… I believe Boxes is a frontend for both KVM (the x86 hypervisor) and QEMU (emulation layer, to emulate non x86 architectures - but QEMU also takes care of virtual hard drive image files in KVM I believe)…
First time I ever used Oracle VM for x86 (NOT VirtualBox! We just call it “OVM”, Oracle VM for Sparc, we just call LDOMs) which used the XEN hypervisor (I believe it still does) required some CLI stuff with QEMU disk images - it was quite primitive, Version 1 I believe, I used OVM 3.x and I quite liked it - a lot of people however LOATHE it passionately.
I use QEMU on my M1 MacBooks (i.e. MacOS on arm64) - but half the time I’m not even aware of it - 'cause I use UTM to do all the backend heavy lifting for me…
UTM does a kick arse job, via QEMU of emulation of uSparc III architecture, on arm64 MacOS… I can run native Solaris 2.5 (SunOS 5) on my M1 MacBook…
There’s an extensive guide somewhere, about using QEMU on x86_64 FreeBSD, to emulate Power6 architecture to run AIX 5 or 6… Why would you want to do that? I would, I quite like AIX, and I’d like to keep my hand in - haven’t used it for 10+ years - but that extensive guide looks like a lot of work, and I’m inherently lazy…
Yes my small try at qemu was with kvm. It does not have to be kvm, you can use other things, but kvm makes sense.
I want to get back to that and learn how to move stuff in and out of the VM. Apparently you can mount the qcow2 file from the host. Or you can setup the guest to communicate via some sort of network.
I didn’t read any of the guff - installed Tiny W11 in VirtualBox - went without a hitch - but won’t let you customize ANY of the appearance settings without activation… And it’s not consistent either, some windows have rounded corners, some don’t - e.g. File Explorer still has sharp corners…
I tried it exclusively in VBox, just to see
And yesterday I needed to record a presentation. After the setup (picture- and soundcheck) everything seemed to be fine, and ready to start. The presenter accidentally pulled the HDMI cable out of her laptop. Simply replug was not sufficient.
It took me 4 minutes to figure, that the option to mirror display simply does nothing, and the extend display option really does the mirror (which she needed for her presentation).
She sweared that options worked correctly 10 minutes before.
Restarting Windows 11 didn’t help.
So it’s a mistery, what happened to Windows 11 in that moment, when the HDMI was accidentally disconnected and the extend display option vanished, and mirror display option start to work triggering the extend display option?
I remember live presentations. The hazards are innumerable. My offsider liked to live on the edge. He once setup communication between a Unix box and a machine driven by a PC using RPC. He never even tested it before the live demo. It worked, but the Chief told me later he had an emergency alternative prepared.
Even that may be insufficient
If proper preparation is done to avoid going wrong something with a certain device, then chances are, things will go wrong with an other device.
Compared to other Windows installs, Tiny W11 has a very small footprint, and even some
Linux installs. It is working really well on this old laptop, that shipped, from Dell, when new, was running W7 Home Premium, which consumed, almost 40GB, the last time I was able to install a fully updated W7. Everything worked right out of the box.
I have compiled a Gentoo VM running KDE Plasma, in my spare time.
Compiling Plasma and getting the Discover app working, can be a challenge,
along with the VB shared folder.
Mate and XFCE are a lot easier.
