README

   1          QEMU README
   2          ===========
   3
   4 QEMU is a generic and open source machine & userspace emulator and
   5 virtualizer.
   6
   7 QEMU is capable of emulating a complete machine in software without any
   8 need for hardware virtualization support. By using dynamic translation,
   9 it achieves very good performance. QEMU can also integrate with the Xen
  10 and KVM hypervisors to provide emulated hardware while allowing the
  11 hypervisor to manage the CPU. With hypervisor support, QEMU can achieve
  12 near native performance for CPUs. When QEMU emulates CPUs directly it is
  13 capable of running operating systems made for one machine (e.g. an ARMv7
  14 board) on a different machine (e.g. an x86_64 PC board).
  15
  16 QEMU is also capable of providing userspace API virtualization for Linux
  17 and BSD kernel interfaces. This allows binaries compiled against one
  18 architecture ABI (e.g. the Linux PPC64 ABI) to be run on a host using a
  19 different architecture ABI (e.g. the Linux x86_64 ABI). This does not
  20 involve any hardware emulation, simply CPU and syscall emulation.
  21
  22 QEMU aims to fit into a variety of use cases. It can be invoked directly
  23 by users wishing to have full control over its behaviour and settings.
  24 It also aims to facilitate integration into higher level management
  25 layers, by providing a stable command line interface and monitor API.
  26 It is commonly invoked indirectly via the libvirt library when using
  27 open source applications such as oVirt, OpenStack and virt-manager.
  28
  29 QEMU as a whole is released under the GNU General Public License,
  30 version 2. For full licensing details, consult the LICENSE file.
  31
  32
  33 Building
  34 ========
  35
  36 QEMU is multi-platform software intended to be buildable on all modern
  37 Linux platforms, OS-X, Win32 (via the Mingw64 toolchain) and a variety
  38 of other UNIX targets. The simple steps to build QEMU are:
  39
  40   mkdir build
  41   cd build
  42   ../configure
  43   make
  44
  45 Additional information can also be found online via the QEMU website:
  46
  47   http://qemu-project.org/Hosts/Linux
  48   http://qemu-project.org/Hosts/W32
  49
  50
  51 Submitting patches
  52 ==================
  53
  54 The QEMU source code is maintained under the GIT version control system.
  55
  56    git clone git://git.qemu-project.org/qemu.git
  57
  58 When submitting patches, the preferred approach is to use 'git
  59 format-patch' and/or 'git send-email' to format & send the mail to the
  60 qemu-devel@nongnu.org mailing list. All patches submitted must contain
  61 a 'Signed-off-by' line from the author. Patches should follow the
  62 guidelines set out in the HACKING and CODING_STYLE files.
  63
  64 Additional information on submitting patches can be found online via
  65 the QEMU website
  66
  67   http://qemu-project.org/Contribute/SubmitAPatch
  68   http://qemu-project.org/Contribute/TrivialPatches
  69
  70
  71 Bug reporting
  72 =============
  73
  74 The QEMU project uses Launchpad as its primary upstream bug tracker. Bugs
  75 found when running code built from QEMU git or upstream released sources
  76 should be reported via:
  77
  78   https://bugs.launchpad.net/qemu/
  79
  80 If using QEMU via an operating system vendor pre-built binary package, it
  81 is preferable to report bugs to the vendor's own bug tracker first. If
  82 the bug is also known to affect latest upstream code, it can also be
  83 reported via launchpad.
  84
  85 For additional information on bug reporting consult:
  86
  87   http://qemu-project.org/Contribute/ReportABug
  88
  89
  90 Contact
  91 =======
  92
  93 The QEMU community can be contacted in a number of ways, with the two
  94 main methods being email and IRC
  95
  96  - qemu-devel@nongnu.org
  97    http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/qemu-devel
  98  - #qemu on irc.oftc.net
  99
 100 Information on additional methods of contacting the community can be
 101 found online via the QEMU website:
 102
 103   http://qemu-project.org/Contribute/StartHere
 104
 105 -- End