If you want to test the Hurd quickly, just run this:

    wget http://people.debian.org/~sthibault/hurd-i386/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz; tar xf de*hu*gz; qemu-system-x86_64 -net user,hostfwd=tcp:127.0.0.1:2222-:22 -net nic -m 1G -drive cache=writeback,file=$(ls de*hu*g)

or, if you want to stick to 140 chars in your commandlines:

    wget http://people.debian.org/~sthibault/hurd-i386/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz; tar xf de*hu*gz; qemu-system-x86_64 -hda de*hu*g -m 1G

(via http://www.draketo.de/english/free-software/howto-hurd-140-c... )

For official info, see https://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd/running/qemu.html#ind...