quickemu/README.md

<h1 align="center">
  <img src=".github/logo.png" alt="Quickemu" />
  <br />
  Quickemu
</h1>

<p align="center"><b>Simple shell script to manage Qemu virtual machines.</b></p>
<div align="center"><img src=".github/screenshot.png" alt="Quickemu Screenshot" /></div>
<p align="center">Made with 💝 for <img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/anythingcodes/slack-emoji-for-techies/gh-pages/emoji/tux.png" align="top" width="24" /></p>

## Introduction

Quickemu is a very simple script to "manage" Qemu virtual machines. Each virtual
machine configuration is broadly the same requiring minimal setup. The main
objective of the project is to enable quick testing of desktop Linux
distributions where the virtual machines can be stored anywhere, such as external
USB storage.

See the video where I explain my motivations for creating this script.

[![Replace VirtualBox with Bash & QEMU](https://img.youtube.com/vi/AOTYWEgw0hI/0.jpg)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOTYWEgw0hI)

## Installation

### Ubuntu 19.10 or newer

Install qemu

```bash
sudo apt install qemu qemu-kvm libvirt-clients libvirt-daemon bridge-utils ovmf
sudo adduser ${SUDO_USER} kvm
```

Install `samba` *(optional)* if you want to share home directories with guest virtual machines

```bash
sudo apt install samba
```

Install the `qemu-virgil` snap *(optional)*

```bash
snap install qemu-virgil
snap connect qemu-virgil:kvm
snap connect qemu-virgil:removable-media
```

## Usage

  * Download a .iso image of a Linux distribution
  * Create a VM configuration file; for example `ubuntu.conf`

```
iso="/media/$USER/Quickemu/ubuntu/focal-desktop-amd64.iso"
disk_img="/media/$USER/Quickemu/ubuntu/focal-desktop-amd64.qcow2
disk=128G
```

  * Use `quickemu.sh` to start the virtual machine:

```
./quickemu --vm ubuntu-focal-desktop.conf
```

Here are the full usage instructions:

```
Usage
  quickemu --vm ubuntu.conf

You can also pass optional parameters
  --delete   : Delete the disk image.
  --efi      : Enable EFI BIOS (experimental).
  --restore  : Restore the snapshot.
  --snapshot : Create a disk snapshot.
  --virgil   : Use virgil, if available.
```

## TODO

  - [x] Make display configuration more robust
  - [x] Improve stdout presentation
  - [x] Make disk image optionally size configurable
  - [ ] Improve snapshot management