QUICKGET(1)

NAME

quickget - download and prepare materials for building a quickemu VM

SYNOPSIS

quickget [os] [release] [edition] | [OPTION]*

DESCRIPTION

quickget will download the requisite materials and prepare a configuration for quickemu to use to build and run

OPTIONS

version | -version | –version
    show version (from Quickemu)

list | list_csv | list_json
    provide a csv list of all supported guest OSes, versions and variants.

[OS] [Release] [Edition]
    specify the OS and release (and optional edition) if insufficient input is provided a list of missing options will be reported and the script will exit. Editions may not apply and will be defaulted if not provided.

NOTES

  Ubuntu Guest

quickget will automatically download an Ubuntu release and create the virtual machine configuration.

    quickget ubuntu 22.04
    quickemu --vm ubuntu-22.04.conf

•   Complete the installation as normal.

•   Post-install:

    •   Install the SPICE agent (spice-vdagent) in the guest to enable copy/paste and USB redirection

        •   sudo apt install spice-vdagent

    •   Install the SPICE WebDAV agent (spice-webdavd) in the guest to enable file sharing.

        •   sudo apt install spice-webdavd

  Ubuntu devel (daily-live) images

quickget can also download/refresh devel images via zsync for Ubuntu developers and testers.

    quickget ubuntu devel
    quickemu --vm ubuntu-devel.conf

You can run quickget ubuntu devel to refresh your daily development image as often as you like, it will even automatically switch to a new series.

  Ubuntu Flavours

All the official Ubuntu flavours are supported, just replace ubuntu with your preferred flavour.

•   kubuntu (Kubuntu)

•   lubuntu (Lubuntu)

•   ubuntu-budgie (Ubuntu Budgie)

•   ubuntukylin (Ubuntu Kylin)

•   ubuntu-mate (Ubuntu MATE)

•   ubuntustudio (Ubuntu Studio)

•   ubuntu (Ubuntu)

•   ubuntu-unity (Ubuntu Unity)

•   xubuntu (Xubuntu)

  Other Operating Systems

quickget also supports:

•   alma (Alma Linux)

•   alpine (Alpine Linux)

•   android (Android x86)

•   archcraft (Archcraft)

•   archlinux (Arch Linux)

•   arcolinux (Arco Linux)

•   batocera (Batocera)

•   cachyos (CachyOS)

•   centos-stream (CentOS Stream)

•   debian (Debian)

•   deepin (Deepin)

•   devuan (Devuan)

•   dragonflybsd (DragonFlyBSD)

•   elementary (elementary OS)

•   endeavouros (EndeavourOS)

•   fedora (Fedora)

•   freebsd (FreeBSD)

•   freedos (FreeDOS)

•   garuda (Garuda Linux)

•   gentoo (Gentoo)

•   ghostbsd (GhostBSD)

•   haiku (Haiku)

•   kali (Kali)

•   kdeneon (KDE Neon)

•   kolibrios (KolibriOS)

•   linuxmint (Linux Mint)

•   lmde (Linux Mint Debian Edition)

•   mageia (Mageia)

•   manjaro (Manjaro)

•   mxlinux (MX Linux)

•   netboot (netboot.xyz)

•   netbsd (NetBSD)

•   nixos (NixOS)

•   openbsd (OpenBSD)

•   opensuse (openSUSE)

•   oraclelinux (Oracle Linux)

•   popos (Pop!_OS)

•   reactos (ReactOS)

•   rebornos (RebornOS)

•   rockylinux (Rocky Linux)

•   slackware (Slackware)

•   solus (Solus)

•   tails (Tails)

•   truenas-core (TrueNAS Core)

•   truenas-scale (TrueNAS Scale)

•   void (Void Linux)

•   zorin (Zorin OS)

Or you can download a Linux image and manually create a VM configuration.

•   Download a .iso image of a Linux distribution

•   Create a VM configuration file; for example debian-bullseye.conf

    guest_os="linux"
    disk_img="debian-bullseye/disk.qcow2"
    iso="debian-bullseye/firmware-11.0.0-amd64-DVD-1.iso"

•   Use quickemu to start the virtual machine:

    quickemu --vm debian-bullseye.conf

•   Complete the installation as normal.

•   Post-install:

    •   Install the SPICE agent (spice-vdagent) in the guest to enable copy/paste and USB redirection.

    •   Install the SPICE WebDAV agent (spice-webdavd) in the guest to enable file sharing.

  macOS Guest

quickget automatically downloads a macOS recovery image and creates a virtual machine configuration.

    quickget macos catalina
    quickemu --vm macos-catalina.conf

macOS high-sierra, mojave, catalina, big-sur and monterey are supported.

•   Use cursor keys and enter key to select the macOS Base System

•   From macOS Utilities

    •   Click Disk Utility and Continue

        •   Select QEMU HARDDISK Media (~103.08GB) from the list and click Erase.

        •   Enter a Name: for the disk

        •   If you are installing macOS Mojave or later (Catalina, Big Sur, and Monterey), choose any of the APFS options as the filesystem. MacOS Extended may not work.

    •   Click Erase.

    •   Click Done.

    •   Close Disk Utility

•   From macOS Utilities

    •   Click Reinstall macOS and Continue

•   Complete the installation as you normally would.

    •   On the first reboot use cursor keys and enter key to select macOS Installer

    •   On the subsequent reboots use cursor keys and enter key to select the disk you named

•   Once you have finished installing macOS you will be presented with an the out-of-the-box first-start wizard to configure various options and set up your username and password

•   OPTIONAL: After you have concluded the out-of-the-box wizard, you may want to enable the TRIM feature that the computer industry created for SSD disks. This feature in our macOS installation will allow QuickEmu to compact (shrink) your macOS disk image whenever you delete files inside the Virtual Machine. Without this step your macOS disk image will only ever get larger and will not shrink even when you delete lots of data inside macOS.

    •   To enable TRIM, open the Terminal application and type the following command followed by pressing enter to tell macos to use the TRIM command on the hard disk when files are deleted:

    sudo trimforce enable

You will be prompted to enter your account’s password to gain the privilege needed. Once you’ve entered your password and pressed enter the command will request confirmation in the form of two questions that require you to type y (for a “yes” response) followed by enter to confirm. If you press enter without first typing y the system will consider that a negative response as though you said “no”:

    IMPORTANT NOTICE: This tool force-enables TRIM for all relevant attached devices, even though such devices may not have been validated for data integrity while using TRIM. Use of this tool to enable TRIM may result in unintended data loss or data corruption. It should not be used in a commercial operating environment or with important data. Before using this tool, you should back up all of your data and regularly back up data while TRIM is enabled. This tool is provided on an "as is" basis. APPLE MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, REGARDING THIS TOOL OR ITS USE ALONE OR IN COMBINATION WITH YOUR DEVICES, SYSTEMS, OR SERVICES. BY USING THIS TOOL TO ENABLE TRIM, YOU AGREE THAT, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, USE OF THE TOOL IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK AND THAT THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO SATISFACTORY QUALITY, PERFORMANCE, ACCURACY AND EFFORT IS WITH YOU.
    Are you sure you with to proceed (y/N)?

And a second confirmation once you’ve confirmed the previous one:

    Your system will immediately reboot when this is complete.
    Is this OK (y/N)?

As the last message states, your system will automatically reboot as soon as the command completes.

The default macOS configuration looks like this:

    guest_os="macos"
    img="macos-catalina/RecoveryImage.img"
    disk_img="macos-catalina/disk.qcow2"
    macos_release="catalina"

•   guest_os="macos" instructs Quickemu to optimise for macOS.

•   macos_release="catalina" instructs Quickemu to optimise for a particular macOS release.

    •   For example VirtIO Network and Memory Ballooning are available in Big Sur and newer, but not previous releases.

    •   And VirtIO Block Media (disks) are supported/stable in Catalina and newer.

  macOS compatibility

There are some considerations when running macOS via Quickemu.

•   Supported macOS releases:

    •   High Sierra

    •   Mojave

    •   Catalina (Recommended)

    •   Big Sur

    •   Monterey

•   quickemu will automatically download the required OpenCore (https://github.com/acidanthera/OpenCorePkg) bootloader and OVMF firmware from OSX-KVM (https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM).

•   Optimised by default, but no GPU acceleration is available.

    •   Host CPU vendor is detected and guest CPU is optimised accordingly.

    •   VirtIO Block Media (https://www.kraxel.org/blog/2019/06/macos-qemu-guest/) is used for the system disk where supported.

    •   VirtIO usb-tablet (http://philjordan.eu/osx-virt/) is used for the mouse.

    •   VirtIO Network (virtio-net) is supported and enabled on macOS Big Sur and newer but previous releases use vmxnet3.

    •   VirtIO Memory Ballooning is supported and enabled on macOS Big Sur and newer but disabled for other support macOS releases.

•   USB host and SPICE pass-through is:

    •   UHCI (USB 2.0) on macOS Catalina and earlier.

    •   XHCI (USB 3.0) on macOS Big Sur and newer.

•   Display resolution can only be changed via macOS System Preferences.

•   Full Duplex audio requires VoodooHDA OC (https://github.com/chris1111/VoodooHDA-OC) or pass-through a USB audio-device to the macOS guest VM.

•   NOTE! Gatekeeper (https://disable-gatekeeper.github.io/) and System Integrity Protection (SIP) (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/disabling_and_enabling_system_integrity_protection) need to be disabled to install VoodooHDA OC

•   File sharing between guest and host is available via virtio-9p (https://wiki.qemu.org/Documentation/9psetup) and SPICE webdavd (https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/phodav/-/merge_requests/24).

•   Copy/paste via SPICE agent is not available on macOS.

  macOS App Store

If you see “Your device or computer could not be verified” when you try to login to the App Store, make sure that your wired ethernet device is en0. Use ifconfig in a terminal to verify this.

If the wired ethernet device is not en0, then then go to System Preferences -> Network, delete all the network devices and apply the changes. Next, open a terminal and run the following:

    sudo rm /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist

Now reboot, and the App Store should work.

  Windows 10 & 11 Guests

quickget can not download Windows10 (https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows10) and Windows 11 (https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows11) automatically, but does automatically create an optimised virtual machine configuration that you can just add an Windows .iso image to. This configuration also includes the VirtIO drivers for Windows (https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/). quickget can automatically download Windows 8.1, Windows 10 (https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10ISO) and Windows 11 (https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows11) along with the VirtIO drivers for Windows (https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/) and creates a virtual machine configuration.

    quickget windows 11
    quickemu --vm windows-11.conf

•   Complete the installation as you normally would.

•   All relevant drivers and services should be installed automatically.

•   A local adminstrator user account is automatically created, with these credentials:

    •   Username: Quickemu

    •   Password: quickemu

The default Windows 11 configuration looks like this:

    guest_os="windows"
    disk_img="windows-11/disk.qcow2"
    iso="windows-11/windows-11.iso"
    fixed_iso="windows-11/virtio-win.iso"
    tpm="on"
    secureboot="on"

•   guest_os="windows" instructs quickemu to optimise for Windows.

•   fixed_iso= specifies the ISO image that provides VirtIO drivers.

•   tpm="on" instructs quickemu to create a software emulated TPM device using swtpm.

AUTHORS

Written by Martin Wimpress.

BUGS

Submit bug reports online at: <https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/issues>

SEE ALSO

Full sources at: <https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu>

quickemu(1), quickemu_conf(1), quickgui(1)

AUTHORS
Martin Wimpress.