Linux mint in qemu

From time to time I want to run a virtual machine on my computer, a sandbox containing another operating system with some programs running in total isolation. Under Linux my answer for this need is a set of three components:

KVM – a virtualization module in the Linux kernel that allows the kernel to function as a hypervisor. (Wikipedia)
QEMU – a machine emulator and virtualizer that can perform hardware virtualization. It can cooperate with KVM to run virtual machines at near-native speed (Wikipedia)
Virtual Machine Manager – a nice GUI to use above things as simply as possible.

Problem

How prepare all above components on a fresh installation of Linux Mint 20.1?

Solution

This solution is based on the article “Install KVM Virtualization on Linux Mint 20” with my additions.

First execute following commands:

Here the above-mentioned article claimed everything is ready and working. But it wasn’t in my case. So just restart Linux now. Then proceed with verification steps:

The output should be:

The output should start with following lines:

Then start Virtual Machine Manager. It should show that it is connected to KVM/QEMU. It should look like this:

Like this:

About krzysztoftomaszewski

3 Responses to How to install KVM/QEMU on Linux Mint 20.1

To share the libraries such as copy/paste, devices, folders, etc, from the virtualized machine wath the main system, what else should I do?

This works except all I had to do was “sudo apt install qemu-kvm libvirt-daemon-system libvirt-clients bridge-utils virt-manager”, reboot, and it just worked.

@ Dero ; I had the same issue and while I suspect it’s possible to get other methods working I just setup a basic Samba share on the host Mint 20 machine and then from the Windows (Win10) virtual machine I just did the following (without the “) on the section you can type stuff in bottom left area of screen… “\\192.168.1.100\” (or whatever is the IP of the machine running Samba) and it showed the folder name I was sharing and I select it and it just worked (since I did not setup any username/password stuff anyone on my network can access that share straight up). because trying to setup a more standard way of sharing seems more difficult on this QEMU/KVM than in VirtualBox.

Источник

Install KVM Virtualization on Linux Mint 20

In this article, we will explain how to install KVM virtualization on the Linux Mint system. Then we will also explain how to create a virtual machine in KVM. We will be using the command line Terminal application for the installation process. To open the command line Terminal, you can use the Ctrl+Alt+T keyboard shortcut.

Note:

We have run the procedure and commands on Linux Mint 20 OS. More or less the same procedure can be followed in older Mint versions.
For installing or removing any package in any Linux distribution including Linux Mint, you must be root user or a standard user with sudo privileges.

Installing KVM Virtualization

Follow the below steps to install KVM virtualization in Linux Mint 20 system:

Step 1: Verify processor support for hardware virtualization

For installing KVM, you must have a processor that supports hardware virtualization. You can verify this using the following command in Terminal:

If the above command returns 0, then it means that the processor does not support hardware virtualization. The value of 1 or greater than it means the processor supports hardware virtualization.

Next, you will need to check whether the virtualization is enabled in the BIOS or not. You can use the kvm-ok command for this purpose which will also tell whether you can run KVM virtual machines in your system or not. To use the kvm-ok, you will need to install the cpu-checker utility. Use the below command to install cpu-checker utility.

Once installed, run kvm-ok:

The above output indicates that virtualization is enabled in the BIOS and you can run KVM virtual machines.

If the virtualization is not enabled in the BIOS, then in the output you might receive hints to enable virtualization by entering into BIOS and then hard poweroff/poweron the system.

Step 2: Install KVM

Now install KVM using the following command in Terminal:

When prompted for a password, enter the sudo password.

Now you will be asked if you want to continue the installation or not. Hit y to continue the installation process. Once it is finished, move on to the next step.

Step 3: Add the user to ‘libvert’ and ‘kvm’ group

Now you will need to add a user to the ‘libvert’ and ‘kvm’ groups. Issue the following commands in Terminal to do so:

Replace the username with the name of the user who will work with KVM.

Now logout and login back to the system to have the user becomes an effective member of the ‘libvert’ and ‘kvm’ groups. This user will be able to run and manage virtual machines.

Step 4: Verify Installation

You can verify the installation with the following command in Terminal:

The output above indicates that the installation has been successful. If something goes wrong, you will receive some error in the above output.

Step 5: Create a virtual machine in KVM

Now you can create a virtual machine in KVM using the GUI based Virtual Machine Manager. Also, download the ISO of any OS you want to install in the virtual machine.

To open the Virtual Machine Manager, hit the super key on your keyboard and type virtual machine. From the search results, click on the Virtual Machine Manager icon to open it.

When the Virtual Machine Manager will open, you will see the following window.

To create a new virtual machine, go to the File menu at the top and then click the New Virtual machine.

The following window will appear allowing you to choose the method through which you will install the OS. If you have the ISO file on your system, choose the Local install media (ISO image or CDROM) option and click the Forward button.

Next in the following window, click the Browse button to locate the ISO of the OS you want to install in your virtual machine. Then click the Forward button.

In the next window, set memory and the number of CPU cores you want to use for the new VM. Then click Forward.

Now enable the storage for your virtual machine and once done, click the Forward button.

Now type a name for your virtual machine. You can also perform some other configurations here. Once you are done, click the Finish button.

Now the VM will be created based on the configurations and the installation options you have provided.

Now the OS installation will be started in a new window. Follow the instructions on the screen to complete the installation process. Once the installation is completed, you will be able to run the virtual machine.

That is all there is to it! In this article, you have learned how to install KVM virtualization on Linux Mint 20 system. You have also learned how to create a virtual machine in KVM and install any operating system inside it.

About the author

Karim Buzdar

Karim Buzdar holds a degree in telecommunication engineering and holds several sysadmin certifications. As an IT engineer and technical author, he writes for various web sites. He blogs at LinuxWays.

Источник

KVM virtualization on a home PC with Linux Mint

KVM – Kernel-based Virtual Machine , virtualization solution for Linux . Allows you to run a virtualized OS with hardware support for CPU (Intel VT, AMD-V , etc.) and emulate the periphery using qemu .

The benefits of virtualization on the desktop
For me as a home user, the main advantage of virtualization is the ability to save the state of the operating system. This means that all open window tabs in the browsers, the background program, working tables, etc when the computer shuts down and will remain when you switch to recover. You can immediately continue working.
The second advantage is that the computer can safely experiment and not be afraid to Bang data, Samusocial file system or to violate the dependencies of the package Manager. In a virtual environment you can do anything, and then, if necessary, to quickly reset all the changes.
Thirdly, to do backup is a pleasure, because the whole system is in one file. Leaked image on an external HDD and ready.
Fourthly, it is sufficient to install and configure how it should work environment and after that you can replace a long and tedious process of installation quick and fun process of cloning. Copied the system image, start the virtual machine, apt-get upgrade – and you can work.
Fifthly, you can have the operating system image in the RAM disk and get a truly enchanting acceleration all at once. I did an experiment: 4 GB host left, and 12 GB gave way with Debian. Inside GNOME, GIMP, LibreOffice, Firefox. All starts at 1000 times faster than even with SSD.
There is a million of advantages, but it is worth saying something about the cons.

Cons of virtualization on a home computer
First, the virtual machine will run slower than a physical computer. Before the performance drop was 50-90% now (in the presence of hardware support) performance loss is 1-5%.
Secondly, there is the problem of data exchange host-guest systems. The solutions are many: shared directories, FTP, Samba, etc.
In General, the disadvantages quite small and it is time to move to the lighting settings.

Configuring KVM in Linux Mint 13/14/15/16/17/17 . 1 :
As a means of virtualization for a long time I used a free software VirtualBox . But recently, out of curiosity, I tested the KVM and was very impressed . KVM runs fast , very easy to set up and run , and still relies on KVM RedHat , as the most promising solution in this area.
Installation is very simple . KVM support is already in the kernel, it remains to establish some small things :

Check that your CPU supports hardware virtualization

If 0 it means that your CPU doesn’t support hardware virtualization.

If 1 or more it does – but you still need to make sure that virtualization is enabled in the BIOS.

Installation

You can start working immediately. For example, run a wonderful distro Linux Mint directly from the ISO :

Please note that if you do not explicitly specify the amount of RAM the -m option, the guest will receive only 128 MB and die in terrible agony.
If you want to install the OS on the drive, then first you should prepare a separate file that will contain the image. This is done all your favorite dd command:

if: indicates the source . Specifies a file that can be either a regular file or a device file .
of : specifies the destination file . The same can write to a regular file , or directly into the device.
bs : the number of bytes that will be written at a time. You can present this argument as the size of the piece of data to be written or read , and the number of pieces can be regulated by the following parameter .
count: the number that indicates how many bits will be copied .

Now the file LM_test_os.image can be used as a hard disk in a virtual environment :

With a hard drive you can do anything, for example, to install the OS or give under separate mount point, for example, under /home. Of course, when you install the OS, option -cdrom no longer needed.

GUI

Much easier to use a GUI frontend for KVM . The most popular is the Virtual Machine Manager ( virt-manager ).

The virt-manager application is a desktop user interface for managing virtual machines through libvirt. It primarily targets KVM VMs, but also manages Xen and LXC (linux containers). It presents a summary view of running domains, their live performance & resource utilization statistics. Wizards enable the creation of new domains, and configuration & adjustment of a domain’s resource allocation & virtual hardware. An embedded VNC and SPICE client viewer presents a full graphical console to the guest domain.

KVM virtualization on a home PC Linux Mint

Installation latest version into Linux Mint:

After installation , look in the menu of Virtual Machine Manager and run it.

Источник

Linux mint in qemu