Hosts/W32
QEMU on W32 and W64 hosts
This documentation is work in progress - more information will be added as needed. It will finally replace the old documentation from the QEMU user manual. I think that a wiki is better in keeping evolving documentation like this one up to date.
While QEMU's main host platform is Linux, it is sometimes also useful to build or run it on members of the W32 / W64 family of operating systems (MS Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, ...) or on ReactOS (a W32 clone).
Running QEMU on the 64-bit variants is similar but needs additional documentation and currently some code patches. Support for W64 was added in QEMU 1.1.
Please note that less developers work on QEMU for W32 / W64 hosts, so it might be less stable (but I don't think it is).
Some system emulations on Linux use KVM, a special emulation mode which claims to reach nearly native speed. KVM is mainly used for x86 (32 and 64 bit) emulation on x86 hosts running Linux. There exists a highly experimental KVM for W32, but it is unknown whether it works with QEMU. Starting with QEMU 2.9, there is also a working acceleration similar to KVM, but based on Intel HAXM.
Building QEMU for W32
QEMU for W32 needs a fairly complete Mingw-w64 based development environment with tools (make, compiler, linker, ...) and some additional libraries. Building with the older MinGW does not work!
Cross builds
Compilation of QEMU for W32 on non-W32 hosts (e.g. Linux hosts) is called cross compilation. Some Linux distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora and maybe others) already include packages needed for cross compilation, so the installation of these packages is the first step.
Debian squeeze based cross builds
Note: Building on Debian squeeze is no longer supported, so the following commands won't work with latest QEMU.
# Debian squeeze for W32: apt-get install gcc-mingw32 mingw32-binutils mingw32-runtime
# Debian (squeeze?) for W64: apt-get install gcc-mingw32 mingw32-binutils mingw-w64
SDL support is not included in standard MinGW, but packages for MinGW are available on the SDL homepage. POSIX thread support is not included in Debian or Ubuntu. Latest QEMU will need it, so you have to get it from MinGW (see links below).
Cross compilers usually are installed in /usr/bin with a prefix. For Debian, the cross gcc is called i586-mingw32msvc-gcc. This cross prefix must be passed to QEMU's configure.
# Debian cross configuration for W32: configure --cross-prefix=i586-mingw32msvc- [--extra-cflags=-mthreads]
Compiler option is needed for gcc versions which don't support TLS (thread local storage) without it (version 4.4 which is Debian's default needs it!).
Debian does not include a cross pkg-config, but it is required for cross builds. The following script can be saved as /usr/bin/i586-mingw32msvc-pkg-config and optionally be linked to /usr/bin/amd64-mingw32msvc-pkg-config.
#!/bin/sh basename=`basename $0` prefix=/usr/`echo $basename|sed s/-pkg-config//` PKG_CONFIG_LIBDIR=$prefix/lib/pkgconfig export PKG_CONFIG_LIBDIR pkg-config --define-variable=prefix=$prefix $@
Debian stretch based cross builds
# Debian stretch for W32 and W64: apt-get install g++-mingw-w64 mingw-w64 mingw-w64-tool mingw-w64-i686-dev mingw-w64-x86-64-dev nsis
In addition, several packages from Cygwin are needed. Add https://qemu.weilnetz.de/debian/ as a package source (see instructions there) and install the required cross packages.
Linux Mint based cross builds
These instructions were tested with the Linux Mint Debian Edition on 2012-06-02.
# Linux Mint for W32 and W64 (about 463 MiB): apt-get install mingw-w64
OpenSUSE based cross builds
Add http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/windows:/mingw:/win32/openSUSE_11.4 (update with your release version) to the list of software repositories. Then install at least the following packets (most of them are pulled via dependencies):
mingw32-binutils mingw32-cpp mingw32-cross-binutils mingw32-cross-cpp mingw32-cross-gcc mingw32-cross-pkg-config mingw32-filesystem mingw32-gcc mingw32-glib2 mingw32-glib2-devel mingw32-glib2-lang mingw32-headers mingw32-libgcc mingw32-libgmp mingw32-libintl mingw32-libintl-devel mingw32-libmpc mingw32-libmpfr mingw32-libSDL mingw32-libSDL-devel mingw32-libssp mingw32-runtime mingw32-zlib mingw32-zlib-devel
This toolchain does not include libiberty.a in its binutils package, but it also does not need to. If building against a QEMU version that still pulls this in unconditionally, simply drop the -liberty
from configure.
For W64 use the corresponding win64 repository and mingw64- packages.
Fedora based cross builds
Fedora supports both W64 and W32 cross builds.
# Fedora for W32 cross build: dnf install mingw32-pixman mingw32-glib2 mingw32-gmp mingw32-SDL2 mingw32-pkg-config
# Fedora for W64 cross build: dnf install mingw64-pixman mingw64-glib2 mingw64-gmp mingw64-SDL2 mingw64-pkg-config
Cross compilers usually are installed in /usr/bin with a prefix. This cross prefix must be passed to QEMU's configure. The prefix depends on your target platform.
For Fedora W64 builds, the cross gcc is called x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc.
# Fedora cross configuration for W64: ./configure --cross-prefix=x86_64-w64-mingw32-
For Fedora W32 builds, the cross gcc is called i686-w64-mingw32-gcc.
# Fedora cross configuration for W32: ./configure --cross-prefix=i686-w64-mingw32-
Note that "-mingw32-w64" appears in prefix for both W32 and W64 builds.
Docker based cross builds
As of June 2016, the master tree supports "docker based compiling", which can be used for convenient windows cross build.
Make sure your docker command works ("docker ps" or "sudo docker ps" reports no error), then cd into the root of QEMU source tree and run
make docker-test-mingw@fedora V=1 DEBUG=1 J=4
, it will download and initialize the needed docker image for you, and drop you into a shell in the started container. Run
cd $QEMU_SRC
then
./configure --cross-prefix=x86_64-w64-mingw32-
or
./configure --cross-prefix=i686-w64-mingw32-
for 64bit/32bit builds respectively.
Native builds with Mingw-w64
Get and install Mingw-w64. In addition, some more packages are needed:
Libraries (also needed for cross builds)
- GLib Run-time (http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/binaries/win32/glib/2.28/glib_2.28.1-1_win32.zip)
- GLib Development (http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/binaries/win32/glib/2.28/glib-dev_2.28.1-1_win32.zip)
- gettext-runtime Development (http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/binaries/win32/dependencies/gettext-runtime-dev_0.18.1.1-2_win32.zip)
Tools (only needed for native builds)
Get the QEMU source code (git or tarball), then run configure and make.
Native builds with Cygwin
Builds with the normal Cygwin compiler are not supported. Nevertheless, cygwin can be used as a build environment because it also contains all necessary Mingw-w64 packages.
# Don't build in the QEMU source directory. Using a subdirectory is better. # Here is an example of a debug build. SRC_PATH=$PWD BUILD_DIR=$PWD/bin/debug/i686-w64-mingw32 mkdir -p $BUILD_DIR cd $BUILD_DIR $SRC_PATH/configure' '--enable-debug' '--cross-prefix=i686-w64-mingw32-' make
For 32 bit builds, these packages should be installed:
Required packages
- mingw64-i686-gcc-g++
- mingw64-i686-glib2.0
- mingw64-i686-pixman
- mingw64-i686-pkg-config
Recommended packages
- mingw64-i686-curl
- mingw64-i686-gtk3
- mingw64-i686-libssh2
- mingw64-i686-libtasn1
- mingw64-i686-nettle
- mingw64-i686-ncurses
- mingw64-i686-gnutls
Optional packages
- mingw64-i686-SDL2
- mingw64-i686-libgcrypt
- mingw64-i686-libusb1.0
- mingw64-i686-usbredir
Building QEMU for W64
QEMU for W64 needs a fairly complete MinGW-w64 based development environment with tools (make, compiler, linker, ...) and some additional libraries.
Cross builds
Compilation of QEMU for W64 on non-W64 hosts (e.g. Linux hosts) is called cross compilation. Some Linux distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora and maybe others) already include packages needed for cross compilation, so the installation of these packages is the first step.
Debian based cross builds
# Debian cross configuration for W64: configure --cross-prefix=amd64-mingw32msvc-
Fedora based cross builds
# Fedora cross configuration for W64: ./configure --cross-prefix=x86_64-w64-mingw32-
Libraries (also needed for cross builds)
- GLib Run-time (http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/binaries/win64/glib/2.22/glib_2.22.4-1_win64.zip)
- GLib Development (http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/binaries/win64/glib/2.22/glib-dev_2.22.4-1_win64.zip) - newer versions don't work because leading underscores for global symbols are missing
- gettext-runtime Development (http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/binaries/win64/dependencies/gettext-runtime-dev_0.18.1.1-2_win64.zip)
Native builds with MSYS2
MSYS2 provides a convenient environment to produce native builds for W64.
- Download and run the MSYS2 installer from [1].
- As per the MSYS2 documentation, download the latest repository updates with:
pacman -Syu
- If required, restart the MSYS2 console. Then update the remaining packages with:
pacman -Su
- Next install the basic set of developer tools:
pacman -S base-devel mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain git python ninja
- Then install any required QEMU-specific packages. For a basic setup you can use:
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-glib2 mingw-w64-x86_64-pixman python-setuptools
- Additional optional features require more packages. For example, to enable GTK+ and SDL user interface you can use:
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-gtk3 mingw-w64-x86_64-SDL2
- Close the MSYS2 console.
- Start mingw64.exe.
- Download the QEMU source code:
git clone https://www.gitlab.com/qemu/qemu
- Finally build QEMU with:
cd qemu ./configure --enable-gtk --enable-sdl make
Installation
Installation is easy with the installers from https://qemu.weilnetz.de/.
Running QEMU for W32
User mode emulation is unsupported: it only works on BSD and Linux.
System emulation
All QEMU system emulation should be working (that simply means I don't know of emulations which don't work, and those which I tried, namely x86 and mips, work well).
Hardware acceleration for x86 can be enabled with the command line option --enable-hax
.
This requires at least QEMU 1.9 and an installed Intel HAXM driver.
Special W32 devices
QEMU is based on Mingw-w64, so some commonly used UNIX device names like /dev/null or /dev/zero can be used. W32 device names also work, especially names like //./PhysicalDrive0 for the first hard disk of the host (this name must be used with extreme care or you will likely crash your system).
Text which is normally printed by QEMU to the console output channels (normally known as standard output = stdout and standard error output = stderr) might be written to files called stdout.txt and stderr.txt if QEMU was linked with SDL 1.2. If you want to see QEMU's help messages or if it does not work as expected, you should look for these files in the directory where your exe file is installed.
Links
- MinGW Website (old, no longer supported by QEMU)
- http://www.mingw.org/
- Mingw-w64 Website (supports both 32 and 64 bit builds)
- http://mingw-w64.sourceforge.net/
- GLib-2.0 for MinGW
- http://www.gtk.org/download/win32.php
- http://www.gtk.org/download/win64.php
- POSIX thread support for MinGW (old, no longer needed)
- http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/files/MinGW/pthreads-w32/
- libSDL 1.2 for MinGW (old, no longer needed)
- http://www.libsdl.org/download-1.2.php
- Intel Hardware Accelerated Execution Manager (HAXM)
- https://software.intel.com/en-us/android/articles/intel-hardware-accelerated-execution-manager