Quickemu: Quickly run optimised Windows, macOS and Linux virtual machines

Re:Quickemu: Quickly run optimised Windows, macOS and Linux ... by steve_rambo on Tuesday January 30, 2024 @06:55AM (#39189049)

libvirt ships with virt-install which also allows for quickly creating and auto-installing Windows and many Linux distributions. I haven't tried it with mac.

Here's a recent example with Alma Linux:

  $ virt-install --name alma9 --memory 1536 --vcpus 1 --disk path=$PWD/alma9.img,size=20 --cdrom alma9.iso --unattended

Then you go for a coffee, come back and have a fully installed and working Alma Linux VM. To get the list of supported operating systems (which varies with your version of libvirt), use:

  $ osinfo-query os

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Quickemu: Quickly run optimised Windows, macOS and Linux ... by rwmj on Tuesday January 30, 2024 @08:15AM (#39189725)

Also

  $ virt-builder fedora-39

if you wanted a Fedora 39 disk image. (Can be later imported to libvirt using virt-install --import).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Quickemu: Quickly run optimised Windows, macOS and Linux ... by stefanha on Tuesday January 30, 2024 @12:23PM (#39192889)

virt-builder is awesome for quickly provisioning Linux distros. It skips the installer because it works from template images. You can use virt-builder with virt-manager (GUI) or virt-install (CLI).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Quickemu: Quickly run optimised Windows, macOS and Linux ... by mrAssHat on Tuesday January 30, 2024 @07:05AM (#39189130)

It is not obvious what the result of this would be. What hostname will it have? How will the disk be partitioned? What packages will be installed? What timezone will be set? What keyboard layout will be set? And so on.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Quickemu: Quickly run optimised Windows, macOS and Linux ... by serf on Tuesday January 30, 2024 @07:10AM (#39189168)

virt-install can be given all of those parameters as arguments[0], too; parent just didn't post an obnoxiously large shell line to demonstrate.

[0]: https://linux.die.net/man/1/virt-install

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Quickemu: Quickly run optimised Windows, macOS and Linux ... by JamesonNetworks on Tuesday January 30, 2024 @07:06AM (#39189136)

To do this I had to install libosinfo-bin

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Quickemu: Quickly run optimised Windows, macOS and Linux ... by presto8 on Tuesday January 30, 2024 @08:58AM (#39190157)

Does virt-install automatically download the ISOs? When I try it, I get the following message:

    $ virt-install --name alma9 --memory 1536 --vcpus 1 --disk path=$PWD/alma9.img,size=20 --cdrom alma9.iso --unattended
    ERROR    Validating install media 'alma9.iso' failed: Must specify storage creation parameters for non-existent path '/home/foo/alma9.iso'.

[ Parent | on HN ]