[arch-general] qemu-kvm vs. qemu upstream

Thu Feb 24 11:53:35 EST 2011

On Thu, 2011-02-24 at 10:33 -0600, C Anthony Risinger wrote: 
> On Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 7:38 PM, Allan McRae <allan at archlinux.org> wrote:
> >
> > If this is virtualbox specific, I'd try qemu-kvm.
> 
> hey,
> 
> i was just trying to get a concrete answer about this the other day,
> so maybe you can clarify because i keep reading conflicting and/or
> outdated information.
> 
> AFAICS, qemu-kvm is still _different_ from upstream kvm support in
> qemu, correct?  i tried rebuilding qemu several times, ensuring i had
> all the options i wanted (SPICE/kvm/etc) and i was getting absolutely
> <expletive deleted> performance -- switch to qemu-kvm and she's
> blazing again, yet many places seem to suggest they are one and the
> same.
> 
> i see they definitely have different sources, but would you/anyone
> care to elaborate on the relationship?
> 
> C Anthony
IIRC

qemu-kvm is  the QEMU + KVM provided by the kvm project and normal QEMU
can use KVM as virtualizer. (correct me if i am wrong )

from wikipedia:
        By itself, KVM does not perform any emulation. Instead, a
        user-space program uses the /dev/kvm interface to set up the
        guest VM's address space, feeds it simulated I/O and maps its
        video display back onto the host's. At least two programs
        exploit this feature: a modified version of Qemu, and Qemu
        itself since version 0.10.0.

In short, if you have VT extensions, use qemu-kvm, if not use qemu since
it emulates ( costs much cpu though ).

QEMU/KVM is for me the best way to run windows, KVM is in the kernel so
now rebuilding of modules, completely open source and it has nice
features.

-- 
Jelle van der Waa
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