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Forget Virtual PC - Hello Qemu!

nsheikh80

nsheikh80

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 2, 2005
215
0
London, England
Just wanted to let you guys know about my experience with a great new app called Qemu .

It is a great x86 emulator and allows you to run Windows and Linux apps within Mac OS X, just like M$ Virtual PC. I have installed Win XP and a few Linux Distros, it has completely relapced Virtual PC for me. Here is the best bit...IT IS FREE!!!

I can do everything on Win XP that I used to do during my Windoze days; even Google Earth seems to run pretty well.

You can download the Mac OS X version of QEMU Qemu. You then need to download the GUI for Qemu called Qemux from here.

To make life easier I would suggest to just download Qemux and it will automatically install Qemu, making the whole process much more simple.

Enjoy and let me know about your experiences.
 
mad jew

mad jew

Moderator emeritus
Apr 3, 2004
32,191
9
Adelaide, Australia
The only problem I have with VPC is the speed and the only thing that would get me to change apps would be a speed increase.

Sorry, not biting.
 
nsheikh80

nsheikh80

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 2, 2005
215
0
London, England
I have never used previous versions of Qemu so I can't really comment but I have heard a lot of people say the latest version 0.7.1 is better than previous.

I suppose its a good alternative for those that need to run 1 or 2 apps in M$ but don't need full blown functionality.
 
W

witness

macrumors 6502
Apr 7, 2005
435
0
Austria
mad jew said:
So is Qemu underlying code for imitating different processors and QemuX/Q are different skins (or interfaces) for this code?
Click to expand...
Qemu is the engine, it will manage the rendering of the guest computer, but it doesn't have a GUI for managing virtual computers, you have to use the terminal. QemuX and Q are GUI's for the management features of Qemu.

Q is more tightly integrated with Qemu than QemuX, it is compiled together with Qemu while QemuX is just installed along side and uses terminal commands to control Qemu.

(This is my understanding; it may not be 100% accurate)
 
W

witness

macrumors 6502
Apr 7, 2005
435
0
Austria
mad jew said:
If I already have VPC 6, is there any point in transferring to Qemu?
Click to expand...
The short answer is no.

I had more reliable networking with Qemu before VPC issued a patch for Tiger, but VPC is much faster. The only other issue is that some software doesn't work on VPC (Microsoft have a buggy x86 implementation), but if you don't have this problem then there's no point in trying anything else, unless you want to do it just for fun :)
 
mad jew

mad jew

Moderator emeritus
Apr 3, 2004
32,191
9
Adelaide, Australia
Okay, thanks. I've lost the site now but I read somewhere that it definitely wont emulate one but it may run on them (emulating x86, as you said) but it is unsupported and probably buggy.
 
joey4127

joey4127

macrumors 6502
Aug 29, 2004
280
0
I just installed Qemu and QemuX. I installed Windows XP pro onto it, opened Qemu, tried running it, but got this error:

Boot from Hard Disk 0 failed
FATAL: Not a bootable disk
 
nsheikh80

nsheikh80

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 2, 2005
215
0
London, England
mad jew said:
Thanks for clearing that up witness. :)

If I already have VPC 6, is there any point in transferring to Qemu?
Click to expand...

I'm sure there is no reason but I would appreciate you checking it out and letting us know what the actual speed difference is, provided you can get it working on a G5 :eek:
 
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