- Accelerators
* - Arm
- kvm (64 bit only), tcg, xen
- * - MIPS
+ * - MIPS (little endian only)
- kvm, tcg
* - PPC
- kvm, tcg
* - RISC-V
- - tcg
+ - kvm, tcg
* - s390x
- kvm, tcg
* - SPARC
Linux OS, macOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD
-----------------------------------------
-The project aims to support the most recent major version at all times. Support
+The project aims to support the most recent major version at all times for
+up to five years after its initial release. Support
for the previous major version will be dropped 2 years after the new major
version is released or when the vendor itself drops support, whichever comes
first. In this context, third-party efforts to extend the lifetime of a distro
-are not considered, even when they are endorsed by the vendor (eg. Debian LTS).
+are not considered, even when they are endorsed by the vendor (eg. Debian LTS);
+the same is true of repositories that contain packages backported from later
+releases (e.g. Debian backports). Within each major release, only the most
+recent minor release is considered.
For the purposes of identifying supported software versions available on Linux,
the project will look at CentOS, Debian, Fedora, openSUSE, RHEL, SLES and
For FreeBSD and OpenBSD, decisions will be made based on the contents of the
respective ports repository, while NetBSD will use the pkgsrc repository.
-For macOS, `HomeBrew`_ will be used, although `MacPorts`_ is expected to carry
+For macOS, `Homebrew`_ will be used, although `MacPorts`_ is expected to carry
similar versions.
-Windows
--------
+Some build dependencies may follow less conservative rules:
+
+Python runtime
+ Distributions with long-term support often provide multiple versions
+ of the Python runtime. While QEMU will initially aim to support the
+ distribution's default runtime, it may later increase its minimum version
+ to any newer python that is available as an option from the vendor.
+ In this case, it will be necessary to use the ``--python`` command line
+ option of the ``configure`` script to point QEMU to a supported
+ version of the Python runtime.
+
+ As of QEMU |version|, the minimum supported version of Python is 3.6.
+
+Python build dependencies
+ Some of QEMU's build dependencies are written in Python. Usually these
+ are only packaged by distributions for the default Python runtime.
+ If QEMU bumps its minimum Python version and a non-default runtime is
+ required, it may be necessary to fetch python modules from the Python
+ Package Index (PyPI) via ``pip``, in order to build QEMU.
+
+Optional build dependencies
+ Build components whose absence does not affect the ability to build
+ QEMU may not be available in distros, or may be too old for QEMU's
+ requirements. Many of these, such as the Avocado testing framework
+ or various linters, are written in Python and therefore can also
+ be installed using ``pip``. Cross compilers are another example
+ of optional build-time dependency; in this case it is possible to
+ download them from repositories such as EPEL, to use container-based
+ cross compilation using ``docker`` or ``podman``, or to use pre-built
+ binaries distributed with QEMU.
-The project supports building with current versions of the MinGW toolchain,
-hosted on Linux (Debian/Fedora).
-The version of the Windows API that's currently targeted is Vista / Server
-2008.
+Windows
+-------
-.. _HomeBrew: https://brew.sh/
+The project aims to support the two most recent versions of Windows that are
+still supported by the vendor. The minimum Windows API that is currently
+targeted is "Windows 8", so theoretically the QEMU binaries can still be run
+on older versions of Windows, too. However, such old versions of Windows are
+not tested anymore, so it is recommended to use one of the latest versions of
+Windows instead.
+
+The project supports building QEMU with current versions of the MinGW
+toolchain, either hosted on Linux (Debian/Fedora) or via `MSYS2`_ on Windows.
+A more recent Windows version is always preferred as it is less likely to have
+problems with building via MSYS2. The building process of QEMU involves some
+Python scripts that call os.symlink() which needs special attention for the
+build process to successfully complete. On newer versions of Windows 10,
+unprivileged accounts can create symlinks if Developer Mode is enabled.
+When Developer Mode is not available/enabled, the SeCreateSymbolicLinkPrivilege
+privilege is required, or the process must be run as an administrator.
+
+.. _Homebrew: https://brew.sh/
.. _MacPorts: https://www.macports.org/
+.. _MSYS2: https://www.msys2.org/
.. _Repology: https://repology.org/
projects / mirror_qemu.git / blobdiff