Starting Debian with QEMU

First create an image – 30GB, using qcow2 format

QEMU Image
shell
qemu-img create -f qcow2 deb13.qcow2 30G

Then start qemu using the image

QEMU Start
shell
qemu-system-x86_64 \-drive file=deb13.qcow2 \-m 4096 \-nic model=pcnet \-vga cirrus \-smp sockets=4,cores=4,threads=1 \-accel hvf
  • -m 4096 sets RAM to 4GB
  • -nic model=pcnet enables networking with a pcnet adapter
  • -vga cirrus enables the Cirrus Logic CLGD 5446 VGA card
  • -smp sockets=4,cores=4,threads=1 sets up multi-processing
  • -accel hvf enables the hypervisor framework on MacOS hosts
    • On Windows hosts, use -accel kvm or whpx

Set -smp values according to the number of sockets, cores and threads your host machine supports. 4,4,1 is a good default if all else fails.