Mark Fletcher [2017-02-17 21:20:18+09] wrote:
> My needs are fairly vanilla -- I have a 4-core-with-hyperthreading Intel
> Core i7 920 CPU, circa 2009, and 24GB or RAM in the host.
I think Qemu fits to most of your needs.
> I run 2 VMs, not all the time, which have 2 CPUs and 4GB of RAM each.
Part of command line:
qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -cpu host -smp cores=2 -m 4G
> Access to physical optical drive,
-cdrom /dev/cdrom
> and virtual disks,
-hda disk_image.img
> Shared folders with the host OS
Install samba server and use option like:
-net user,smb=...
IP network access is also possible.
> 2D graphics is important, 3D less so.
I don't know about this. Qemu has these graphic cards (man qemu-system):
-vga type
Select type of VGA card to emulate. Valid values for type are
cirrus
Cirrus Logic GD5446 Video card. All Windows versions starting
from Windows 95 should recognize and use this graphic card.
For optimal performances, use 16 bit color depth in the guest
and the host OS. (This one is the default)
std Standard VGA card with Bochs VBE extensions. If your guest
OS supports the VESA 2.0 VBE extensions (e.g. Windows XP) and
if you want to use high resolution modes (>= 1280x1024x16)
then you should use this option.
vmware
VMWare SVGA-II compatible adapter. Use it if you have
sufficiently recent XFree86/XOrg server or Windows guest with
a driver for this card.
qxl QXL paravirtual graphic card. It is VGA compatible
(including VESA 2.0 VBE support). Works best with qxl guest
drivers installed though. Recommended choice when using the
spice protocol.
tcx (sun4m only) Sun TCX framebuffer. This is the default
framebuffer for sun4m machines and offers both 8-bit and
24-bit colour depths at a fixed resolution of 1024x768.
cg3 (sun4m only) Sun cgthree framebuffer. This is a simple 8-bit
framebuffer for sun4m machines available in both 1024x768
(OpenBIOS) and 1152x900 (OBP) resolutions aimed at people
wishing to run older Solaris versions.
none
Disable VGA card.
> Ability to access physical USB equipment attached to the host would be
> nice but not a show-stopper.
Works in Qemu:
-usb -usbdevice host:<vendor_id>:<product_id>
Check those ids with "lsusb" and ensure that the user has write access
to the device files, with an udev rule, for example:
/etc/udev/rules.d/qemu.rules:
ATTR{idVendor}=="0000", ATTR{idProduct}=="1111", GROUP="qemu"
And add user to the "qemu" group.
> Minimal time futzing around to get the virtualisation solution working
> is important, as is not having to learn an entirely new paradigm to
> use the software. Stability of the result is also important.
Qemu is a command-line tool but Aqemu is a Virtualbox-like graphical
interface for it. Aqemu can show Qemu's command line so you'll learn
quickly what options are relevant to your machine.
> And finally, a neat solution to migrate my Virtualbox machines to the
> new environment is very important -- I would infinitely prefer not to
> have to re-install from scratch into the new environment
I don't know how Windows OS will handle the change of the underlying
machine but disk images should be easy to convert:
qemu-img -O qcow2 source-image.vdi target-image.qcow2
--
/// Teemu Likonen - .-.. <https://keybase.io/tlikonen> //
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