[Qemu-discuss] Problem using qemu on an ARM environment

[Cristiano Carlos Matte]

Hi everyone,

I have an ARM environment with the Linux Kernel 3.19, Ubuntu 12.04 filesystem 
and Xen 4.4 for ARM. This environment is running on a Cubietruck. My intent 
is to run virtual machines using Xen, which relies on qemu to emulate disks.

I can successfully instantiate virtual machines if I use a 'phy' disk in Xen, 
as it does not use qemu for emulation. The problem is that I need to use .img 
disks, Xen is failing because qemu is failing.

In fact, Xen on ARM uses qemu-system-i386, as stated in 
https://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_ARM_with_Virtualization_Extensions#Use_of_qemu-system-i386_on_ARM.

But, if I try to execute qemu-dm from /usr/bin/qemu-system-i386 it outputs 
the following error:
Could not initialize SDL (No available video device) - exiting

The thing is that the environment I am using has no video device and I do not 
need it from qemu. But I also don't know if Xen is facing the same problem 
with qemu or if another problem is happening, because it does not log it for 
me. What Xen is logging is:
​
libxl: error: libxl_dm.c:1393:device_model_spawn_outcome: domain 16 device 
model: spawn failed (rc=-3)
libxl: error: libxl_create.c:1189:domcreate_devmodel_started: device model 
did not start: -3
libxl: error: libxl_dm.c:1497:kill_device_model: Device Model already exited

Which is not very helpful.

Does anyone have any idea about what can be occurring with qemu?

Regards
Cristiano