Re: [Qemu-discuss] qemu for windows and kvm

[Mike Lovell]

On 02/26/2013 06:34 AM, Jakob Bohm wrote:
> On 2/26/2013 5:06 AM, Sylvain wrote:
> >  Hi all,
> >
> > I had a good experiment a few years ago
> > with qemu-0.9.1 for windows
> > I recently decided to update to the latest version which
> > is 1.3.1 .
> >
> > On my windows vista laptop
> >  (AMD athlon 64 dual core if it can help), I was able to run 
> > successfully
> > the sample bat file linux-0.2.bat .
> >
> > I adapted my old .bat script
> > for my application. It worked but very slowly.
> > I decided to activate the kvm acceleration.
> > It failed with the message:
> >
> > KVM not supported for this target
> > No accelerator found!
> >
> > Here is the content of the .bat file :
> >
> > REM Start qemu on windows.
> > REM net start kqemu
> > REM @ECHO OFF
> > SET SDL_VIDEODRIVER=directx
> > SET SDL_AUDIODRIVER=sdl
> > SET QEMU_AUDIO_DRV=dsound
> > SET QEMU_AUDIO_LOG_TO_MONITOR=1
> >
> > START qemu-system-x86_64w.exe -L Bios -k en-us -vga std -m 512M -sdl 
> > -soundhw es1370 ^
> > -boot menu=off,order=dca ^
> > -rtc base=localtime,clock=host ^
> > -name RACD -drive file=linux-0.2.img,media=disk,cache=writeback ^
> > -net nic,model=ne2k_pci -net user -enable-kvm ^
> > -machine pc,accel=kvm,kernel_irqchip=on -cpu pentium ^
> > -cdrom 1.2.4.iso
> >
> > (I obtained similar results using qemu-system-i386w.exe instead of 
> > qemu-system-x86_64w.exe )
> >
> > In the past, it was necessary to install kqemu for windows
> > (the three commented lines at the beginning of the script  are a 
> > sequel of that; the behavior
> > is not changed if these lines are uncommented)
> >
> > Is it necessary to update kqemu for windows ?
> > (the old one which was working properly with qemu-0.9.x is still there)
> > Or is the problem elsewhere ?
> Unfortunately, shortly after kqemu was opensourced, some short-sighted
> person decided thatbecause some expensive CPUs, under Linux only,
> could get better results with kvm, thenall the kqemu support should be
> removed from qemu.
>
> This has left us all with no CPU assisted acceleration of
> same-architecture qemu in all of thefollowing scenarios:
>
>  - x86 CPUs without virtual extensions
>  - non-Linux kernels
>  - nested virtualisation
>  - non-x86 CPUs that could have had kqemu-like functionality (which is
>   almost all CPUs with hardware separation of user and kernel mode).

while all of these were true at one point, they aren't all completely 
true now. this sounds a little sensationalist and i feel a little bit of 
desire to correct on some of it.

joyent added support for kvm to smartos which is solaris based and that 
support has been ported to openindiana. there isn't support for windows 
though. there have been efforts to port to at least freebsd but it seems 
there wasn't enough support for them to continue.

there is nested virtualization support and i use this on a regular 
basis. it does require newer software and hardware support though. i 
believe it is RVI for amd processors or EPT for intel processors that is 
required.

there are also projects to add support for kvm to other processor 
architectures. i've heard of work being done for the virtualization 
support in the new arm15 architecture and work for power based system. i 
don't follow those so i can't speak to their progress.

kvm does not fit in every situation. kqemu supported some that kvm does 
not such as running on a windows host. but kqemu wasn't without problems 
and there is work to add or improve support for kvm in some areas.

to answer the original question, kqemu support was removed and there 
isn't a replacement for qemu acceleration on windows. i don't know if 
there ever will be a replace for kqemu on windows either. i hope there 
is eventually but i haven't heard of anything getting serious support 
from the community.

mike