Re: [Qemu-discuss] [SOLVED] Can't boot Debian netinst ISO

[Richard Lewis]

At Fri, 28 Feb 2014 14:49:08 +0000,
Richard Lewis wrote:

> I'm very new to QEMU. I have verion 1.1.2 from Debian stable
> installed. I'm logged into the guest system via SSH.
> 
> I'm trying to create a VM on which to install Debian. This is what
> I've done:
> 
> $ qemu-img create -f qcow2 debian-image.qcow 2G
> $ qemu-system-x86_64 -hda debian-image.qcow -cdrom 
> debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso -boot d -m 512 -curses
> 
> When I do this I see a screen showing me:
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>     640 x 480 Graphic mode
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

So it seems that the ISO image *is* booting, it's just that I can't
see the installer on the terminal because it's in VGA mode. That's
presumably what the above screen was telling me. But my QEMU knowledge
was too deficient to know that.

I eventually managed to work out how to connect a VNC client to it:

host$ qemu-system-x86_64 -hda debian-image.qcow -cdrom 
debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso -boot menu=on -m 512 -vnc :1

And then on my local X11 machine:

$ vncviewer host::5901

And I found the install menu waiting for me!

Richard