Raspberry pi 4b emulating Windows 2000/XP (Updated)

It is tough to run a usable x86 system on qemu-x86_64. But I made it! I use the hugepages to accelerate the system because it is a strong-on-weak memory order for ARM64 CPU running guest systems like Windows. Further, we should also assign only one vCPU and set the Windows 2000 as ACPI uniprocessor PC, by which you will see the CPU utilization in your top going down when your Windows 2000 is idle. The same phenomenon can be observed on a Windows XP virtual machine running on the Virtualbox. Drivers used are shown in last post.

Note that I did not find disks of the virtio type could boost the virtual machine compared with disks of the IDE type, especially when I tested reading speed using hdtune. That’s weird.

Below is the running command obtained through command `ps aux | grep qemu`. Those should also apply to create a usable Windows XP qemu virtual machine.

/usr/local/bin/qemu-system-x86_64 -name guest=win2k-x86_64,debug-threads=on -S -object {"qom-type":"secret","id":"masterKey0","format":"raw","file":"/var/lib/libvirt/qemu/domain-3-win2k-x86_64/master-key.aes"} -machine pc-i440fx-7.2,usb=off,vmport=off,dump-guest-core=off,memory-backend=pc.ram -accel tcg -cpu qemu64,hv-time=on,hv-relaxed=on,hv-vapic=on,hv-spinlocks=0x1fff -m 512 -object {"qom-type":"memory-backend-file","id":"pc.ram","mem-path":"/dev/hugepages/libvirt/qemu/3-win2k-x86_64","x-use-canonical-path-for-ramblock-id":false,"prealloc":true,"size":536870912} -overcommit mem-lock=off -smp 1,sockets=1,cores=1,threads=1 -uuid 24828db7-6937-4da1-ab6b-317267af4156 -no-user-config -nodefaults -chardev socket,id=charmonitor,fd=31,server=on,wait=off -mon chardev=charmonitor,id=monitor,mode=control -rtc base=localtime -no-shutdown -global PIIX4_PM.disable_s3=1 -global PIIX4_PM.disable_s4=0 -boot strict=on -device ich9-usb-ehci1,id=usb,bus=pci.0,addr=0x5.0x7 -device ich9-usb-uhci1,masterbus=usb.0,firstport=0,bus=pci.0,multifunction=on,addr=0x5 -device ich9-usb-uhci2,masterbus=usb.0,firstport=2,bus=pci.0,addr=0x5.0x1 -device ich9-usb-uhci3,masterbus=usb.0,firstport=4,bus=pci.0,addr=0x5.0x2 -blockdev {"driver":"file","filename":"/VMs/win2k.img","node-name":"libvirt-3-storage","auto-read-only":true,"discard":"unmap"} -blockdev {"node-name":"libvirt-3-format","read-only":false,"driver":"raw","file":"libvirt-3-storage"} -device ide-hd,bus=ide.0,unit=0,drive=libvirt-3-format,id=ide0-0-0,bootindex=1 -blockdev {"driver":"file","filename":"/mnt/myusbdrive/softwares/viostor.iso","node-name":"libvirt-2-storage","auto-read-only":true,"discard":"unmap"} -blockdev {"node-name":"libvirt-2-format","read-only":true,"driver":"raw","file":"libvirt-2-storage"} -device ide-cd,bus=ide.1,unit=0,drive=libvirt-2-format,id=ide0-1-0 -blockdev {"driver":"file","filename":"/mnt/myusbdrive/softwares/vol.img","node-name":"libvirt-1-storage","cache":{"direct":true,"no-flush":false},"auto-read-only":true,"discard":"unmap"} -blockdev {"node-name":"libvirt-1-format","read-only":false,"cache":{"direct":true,"no-flush":false},"driver":"raw","file":"libvirt-1-storage"} -device ide-hd,bus=ide.1,unit=1,drive=libvirt-1-format,id=ide0-1-1,write-cache=on -netdev tap,fd=32,id=hostnet0 -device virtio-net-pci,netdev=hostnet0,id=net0,mac=52:54:00:e4:d4:ee,bus=pci.0,addr=0x3 -device usb-tablet,id=input2,bus=usb.0,port=1 -audiodev {"id":"audio1","driver":"none"} -vnc 0.0.0.0:2,audiodev=audio1 -device cirrus-vga,id=video0,bus=pci.0,addr=0x2 -device virtio-balloon-pci,id=balloon0,bus=pci.0,addr=0x7 -L /usr/share/qemu -sandbox on,obsolete=deny,elevateprivileges=deny,spawn=deny,resourcecontrol=deny -msg timestamp=on

Here is the xml file can be used in the virt-manager.

Enjoy!

pi@ubuntu:~$ virsh dumpxml win2k-x86_64 > win2k.xml
pi@ubuntu:~$ cat win2k.xml
<domain type='qemu' xmlns:qemu='http://libvirt.org/schemas/domain/qemu/1.0'>
  <name>win2k-x86_64</name>
  <uuid>24828db7-6937-4da1-ab6b-317267af4156</uuid>
  <metadata>
    <libosinfo:libosinfo xmlns:libosinfo="http://libosinfo.org/xmlns/libvirt/domain/1.0">
      <libosinfo:os id="http://microsoft.com/win/2k"/>
    </libosinfo:libosinfo>
  </metadata>
  <memory unit='KiB'>524288</memory>
  <currentMemory unit='KiB'>524288</currentMemory>
  <memoryBacking>
    <hugepages/>
  </memoryBacking>
  <vcpu placement='static'>1</vcpu>
  <os>
    <type arch='x86_64' machine='pc-i440fx-7.2'>hvm</type>
    <boot dev='hd'/>
  </os>
  <features>
    <acpi/>
    <apic/>
    <hyperv mode='custom'>
      <relaxed state='on'/>
      <vapic state='on'/>
      <spinlocks state='on' retries='8191'/>
    </hyperv>
    <vmport state='off'/>
  </features>
  <cpu mode='custom' match='exact' check='none'>
    <model fallback='forbid'>qemu64</model>
  </cpu>
  <clock offset='localtime'>
    <timer name='hpet' present='yes'/>
    <timer name='hypervclock' present='yes'/>
  </clock>
  <on_poweroff>destroy</on_poweroff>
  <on_reboot>restart</on_reboot>
  <on_crash>destroy</on_crash>
  <pm>
    <suspend-to-mem enabled='no'/>
    <suspend-to-disk enabled='yes'/>
  </pm>
  <devices>
    <emulator>/usr/local/bin/qemu-system-x86_64</emulator>
    <disk type='file' device='disk'>
      <driver name='qemu' type='raw'/>
      <source file='/VMs/win2k.img'/>
      <target dev='hda' bus='ide'/>
      <address type='drive' controller='0' bus='0' target='0' unit='0'/>
    </disk>
    <disk type='file' device='disk'>
      <driver name='qemu' type='raw'/>
      <source file='/VMs/vol.img'/>
      <target dev='hdb' bus='ide'/>
      <address type='drive' controller='0' bus='0' target='0' unit='1'/>
    </disk>
    <disk type='file' device='cdrom'>
      <driver name='qemu' type='raw'/>
      <source file='/mnt/myusbdrive/softwares/NetKVM.iso'/>
      <target dev='hdc' bus='ide'/>
      <readonly/>
      <address type='drive' controller='0' bus='1' target='0' unit='0'/>
    </disk>
    <controller type='usb' index='0' model='ich9-ehci1'>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x05' function='0x7'/>
    </controller>
    <controller type='usb' index='0' model='ich9-uhci1'>
      <master startport='0'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x05' function='0x0' multifunction='on'/>
    </controller>
    <controller type='usb' index='0' model='ich9-uhci2'>
      <master startport='2'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x05' function='0x1'/>
    </controller>
    <controller type='usb' index='0' model='ich9-uhci3'>
      <master startport='4'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x05' function='0x2'/>
    </controller>
    <controller type='pci' index='0' model='pci-root'/>
    <controller type='ide' index='0'>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x01' function='0x1'/>
    </controller>
    <interface type='network'>
      <mac address='52:54:00:e4:d4:ee'/>
      <source network='default'/>
      <model type='virtio'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x03' function='0x0'/>
    </interface>
    <input type='mouse' bus='ps2'/>
    <input type='keyboard' bus='ps2'/>
    <input type='tablet' bus='usb'>
      <address type='usb' bus='0' port='1'/>
    </input>
    <graphics type='vnc' port='5902' autoport='no' listen='0.0.0.0'>
      <listen type='address' address='0.0.0.0'/>
    </graphics>
    <audio id='1' type='none'/>
    <video>
      <model type='cirrus' vram='16384' heads='1' primary='yes'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x02' function='0x0'/>
    </video>
    <memballoon model='virtio'>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x07' function='0x0'/>
    </memballoon>
  </devices>
  <qemu:commandline>
    <qemu:arg value='-L'/>
    <qemu:arg value='/usr/share/qemu'/>
  </qemu:commandline>
</domain>