Qemu

Optimized options that seem to work on MacOS:

-m 4G -smp 6                # Resources: Use 4GB memory and 6 cpus
-machine type=q35,accel=hvf # Machine: Default is `pc`. `q35` should be better. Haven't noticed any perfomance gains
                            # Hypervisor: Uses HyperVisorFramework to speed up qemu a LOT, ~6x
-drive file=archlinux.qcow2,media=disk,if=virtio  # Boot: Points to the image
-nic user,hostfwd=tcp::10022-:22  # Network: Forward host port 10022 to guest 22, so `ssh -p10022 user@localhost` should work

# Display options on MacOS:
    # If you launch this script in the background, the same terminal can be
    # used to ssh into qemu. After exiting, tmux's scrollback breaks. Opening
    # and closing [n]vim fixes this...
-nographic
    # Doesn't do anything noticably different from just -nographic
-monitor none -curses -nographic
    # Support a 4k instance on MacOS. A spice server would be better. It's
    # really laggy with KDE, to the point of unusable
-vga virtio -full-screen -display cocoa
    # Only supports 1080p. MacOS must use a cocoa display. Compared to above
    # the display scales by 2x which makes text bigger tho more blurry
-vga std -display cocoa

Qemu fully nongraphic

MacOS can't use -display ncurses properly with qemu. Ncurses requires a linux kernel to work properly. Instead use -nographic and launch the process in the background. Bash uses & for backgrounding. You can now SSH into the qemu instance.

Bonus: For shared file systems, there are two options on Macs:

MacFUSE - Manually setup and mount with sshfs. It's much easier to use
lima - Tries to do reverse sshfs for you and forwards ports too. This one is pretty new and questionably useful compared to manually using sshfs

1.7 KiB Raw Blame History

Qemu

Qemu fully nongraphic

1.7 KiB

Raw Blame History