windowsxp

Setting up KVM for virtual machines in Ubuntu 8.04 is easy!

A few simple steps will get you up and running. First, install the packages with your favorite package manager, or at a console type:

sudo apt-get install kvm libvirt-bin virt-manager virt-viewer qemu

I also found I needed to add myself to the kvm group:

sudo adduser `id -un` kvm
sudo adduser `id -un` libvirtd

You must add yourself to libvirtd for networking to function :-)

Here's one of the few situations where rebooting linux is probably easier for most people than trying to manually start everything, so give her a boot and log back in.

Under your Applications menu in "System Tools" you'll find "Virtual Machine Manager". Connect to the qemu "localhost" setup that is already there by right clicking on it. After it says you are connected, click New at the bottom of the window to create a new virtual machine instance. Follow the wizard to configure your install.

I found that after installing XP, when it rebooted to complete the install that kvm didn't remount the cd-rom image I was installing from, so I had to manually edit the virtual machine setup and add a storage device pointed at the Windows XP cd-rom. Then installation finished normally.

The first thing I noticed was that install took about 45 minutes total, which seemed a bit long to me. It could be the setup I chose. I'm running a dual-core AMD 64 on a 64 bit Ubuntu install, and chose to run a 2 processor 32 bit virtual machine for the install.