System Emulation with QEMU
VIRTUAL BENEFITS
Do you ever wish you could run Linux within Linux? Or how about DOS within Linux? QEMU is an open source application that lets you emulate a complete hardware environment within your Linux system.
Linux supports several applications that let you emulate the conditions of a hardware architecture. These applications can create a virtual computer within your Linux machine. You can use this virtual computer to test software or even run another operating system. An application that emulates a hardware environment is known as a system emulator. The most common system emulators for Linux are Bochs [1], a very powerful emulator that is often difficult to configure, and VMware [2], a very good and very fast emulator that, unfortunately, comes with a higher price because it is a commercial product. But another competitor in the field of system emulation is coming on the scene. In this article you’ll learn about the power-ful (and free) QEMU system emulator application. QEMU is extremely easy to use, and it provides simple commands for tasks that may be difficult with other emulators. I’ll show you how to use QEMU in some real situations, but keep in mind that this article only covers a fraction of the features and commands available with QEMU. To see the rest, download QEMU yourself and put it to work.
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
TUXEDO has unveiled a new InfinityBook Pro with an AMD Ryzen AI 300
This new notebook offers serious power that is ready for your business, development, or entertainment needs.
-
Is This the Year of Linux?
Another major organization has decided to kick Windows and Office to the curb, in favor of Linux.
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.
-
KaOS 2025.05 Officially Qt5 Free
If you're a fan of independent Linux distributions, the team behind KaOS is proud to announce the latest iteration that includes kernel 6.14 and KDE's Plasma 6.3.5.
-
Linux Kernel 6.15 Now Available
The latest Linux kernel is now available with several new features/improvements and the usual bug fixes.
-
Microsoft Makes Surprising WSL Announcement
In a move that might surprise some users, Microsoft has made Windows Subsystem for Linux open source.
-
Red Hat Releases RHEL 10 Early
Red Hat quietly rolled out the official release of RHEL 10.0 a bit early.