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FAQs-and-Help

General FAQ's​

My Virtual Machine won't work​

Download and try a different machine, a different distro .... Does that work?

Is it the specific distro that won't work? Or is it the whole of your Setup?

Have you tried switching to FreeSpirit or or even backwards to HomeBird?

Have both qqX and Quickemu stopped following a system update? It may be that a system update broke things.

Check for new commits to see if any fixes have been issued. Also check the qqX development branches.

When checking for issues make sure to view is:closed not just is:open

To get the very latest code, download from the 'clone' button, not from the releases tab.

Do the same for Quickemu

Try Quickemu directly at the command prompt from the .conf folder: quickemu --vm name.conf

Paste a copy of the quickemu script into that folder too. Run with a ./ prefix, eg. ./quickemu --vm name.conf

Make sure that both your system and all your underlying Quickemu dependencies are up-to-date.

Also check your Host OS repository for different Qemu and Quickemu variants eg. base, full and desktop etc

Be also aware that new-user/walled garden distros, plus those offering Long Term Support, may not always have the latest updates.

See https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/issues/928

My downloads are very slow​

This could be your router/ISP. The download servers may be busy. Try again another time.

See https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/issues/898

Newer versions of qqX allow you to stop the download and restart. This can usually reconnect you to another server or another mirror and often resolve things.

Windows download errors​

If you keep retrying, and from the same IP address, then Microsoft will block you ....

See https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/issues/938

Windows Install​

Problems can occur from Apparmor > swtpm: Could not open UnixIO socket: Permission denied

MacOS hangs when running the setup​

This has been a common event. The setup often used to just sit there and appear to be doing nothing.

  • Recent improvements have changed things. See the MacOS wiki page.

SDL vs Spicy​

Qemu runs the Virtual Machines via a 'local server' that it sets up on your computer.

We can use different methods to access and view the server output. SDL & Spicy are two of the methods that are supported by Qemu.

Both Quickgui and GnomeBoxes only offer Spicy. Quickemu itself will offer several other modes that Qemu supports and some of these modes are not fully documented. However, you can try most of these display variants from the standard qqX interface.

SDL tends to be faster and crisper than Spicy. But in GL mode, Spicy is scaleable and offers cut and paste between the guest and host.

SDL will scale with GL turned off. Cut and paste should hopefully be available some time in 2024/25 ...

It is a known issue with OpenSUSE that SDL is not available ... No workarounds appear present.

Windows will generally run faster with GL turned off. Set gl="off" in the .conf file. See notes on GPU pass-thru if faster performance is needed.

GTK has generally less abilities but can sometimes work when the other two might fail.

Another mode is 'headless' for use with guest server setups. See further notes in the qqX settings file.

See https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/issues/933

What are the Tiano Core Security Updates​

qqX refreshes the OVMF files in the VM folder from time to time to make sure that any Tiano updates get implemented.

This is especially important for MacOS folders as they also contain code files.

  • You can run the 'refresh_tiano_vars' process manually run via the [rtv] option in the utils menu.

I am running out of disk space​

Ideally the Virtual Machine should have been allocated a generous size from the outset. But things aren't always that way ...

See the qqX help section on easy disk resizing

I need to edit / repair the VM partitions​

qqX has a neat ISO boot option that works just like booting your desktop computer from a USB repair disk

See the help section on booting from iso's

I can't get the mouse to work​

Sometimes, especially with non-Linux distros, we need to tweak the .conf file. Quickemu defaults to mouse="tablet" if an option is not supplied. You can try mouse="usb" or ="virtio" for example. The qqX conf editor will show the full list.

If you still having problems, try custom tweaking the usb boot-setup. Switch xhci to ehci maybe?

See Custom-Qemu-boot-parameters for more details.

USB won't work​

Most of the the big money in Virtual Machine development tends to target server deployment. The running of virtual desktops is less of a commercial priority and desktops vary greatly too. Some of these areas can be problematic ...

In the conf file, try usb-controller= 'ehci' (default), 'xhci', 'none'

Audio won't work​

As with USB, this is not a priority area. Newer versions of Qemu are more supportive. See this quickemu commit.

In the conf file, try sound card= 'intel-hda' (default), 'ac97', 'es1370', 'sb16', 'usb-audio', 'none'

The quickemu PPA won't work​

PPA's are intended for Ubuntu host distros only.

If you are using Ubuntu, make sure that you the PPA didn't get disabled during a distro release update. See Software & Updates > Other software.