quickemu/docs/quickget.1.md

author	date	footer	header	section	title
Martin Wimpress	February 20, 2022	quickget	Quickget User Manual	1	QUICKGET

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 20.04
quickemu --vm ubuntu-20.04.conf

• Complete the installation as normal.
• Post-install:
  • Install the SPICE agent (spice-vdagent) to enable copy/paste and USB redirection
    • sudo apt install spice-vdagent
  • Install the SPICE WebDAV agent (spice-webdavd) 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)
• xubuntu (Xubuntu)

Other Operating Systems

quickget also supports:

• alma (Alma Linux)
• alpine (Alpine Linux)
• android (Android x86)
• archlinux (Arch Linux)
• arcolinux (Arco Linux)
• cachyos (CachyOS)
• debian (Debian)
• devuan (Devuan)
• dragonflybsd (DragonFlyBSD)
• elementary (elementary OS)
• fedora (Fedora)
• freebsd (FreeBSD)
• garuda (Garuda Linux)
• gentoo (Gentoo)
• ghostbsd (GhostBSD)
• haiku (Haiku)
• kali (Kali)
• kdeneon (KDE Neon)
• kolibrios (KolibriOS)
• linuxmint (Linux Mint)
• manjaro (Manjaro)
• mxlinux (MX Linux)
• netboot (netboot.xyz)
• netbsd (NetBSD)
• nixos (NixOS)
• openbsd (OpenBSD)
• opensuse (openSUSE)
• oraclelinux (Oracle Linux)
• popos (Pop!_OS)
• regolith (Regolith Linux)
• rockylinux (Rocky Linux)
• slackware (Slackware)
• solus (Solus)
• tails (Tails)
• 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) to enable copy/paste and USB redirection.
  • Install the SPICE WebDAV agent (spice-webdavd) 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
    • On macOS Catalina, Big Sur & Monterey
      • Select Apple Inc. VirtIO Block Media from the list and click Erase.
    • On macOS Mojave and High Sierra
      • Select QEMU HARDDISK Media (~103.08GB) from the list and click Erase.
  • Enter a Name: for the disk and 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

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 bootloader and OVMF firmware from 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 is used for the system disk where supported.
  • VirtIO usb-tablet 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 works on macOS High Sierra, Mojave and Catalina.
  • macOS Big Sur and Monterey have no audio at all.
• File sharing between guest and host is available via virtio-9p and SPICE webdavd.
• Copy/paste via SPICE agent is not available on macOS.

Windows 8.1, 10 & 11 Guests

quickget can automatically download Windows 8.1, Windows 10 and Windows 11 along with the VirtIO drivers for Windows 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.

Regional versions

By default quickget will download the "English International" release, but you can optionally specify one of the supported languages: For example:

quickget windows 11 "Chinese (Traditional)"

The default Windows 11 configuration looks like this:

guest_os="windows"
disk_img="windows-11/disk.qcow2"
iso="windows-11/Win11_EnglishInternational_x64.iso"
fixed_iso="windows-11/virtio-win.iso"
tpm="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)