qemu

FORK: QEMU emulator
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build-platforms.rst (4902B)

      1 .. _Supported-build-platforms:
      2 
      3 Supported build platforms
      4 =========================
      5 
      6 QEMU aims to support building and executing on multiple host OS
      7 platforms. This appendix outlines which platforms are the major build
      8 targets. These platforms are used as the basis for deciding upon the
      9 minimum required versions of 3rd party software QEMU depends on. The
     10 supported platforms are the targets for automated testing performed by
     11 the project when patches are submitted for review, and tested before and
     12 after merge.
     13 
     14 If a platform is not listed here, it does not imply that QEMU won't
     15 work. If an unlisted platform has comparable software versions to a
     16 listed platform, there is every expectation that it will work. Bug
     17 reports are welcome for problems encountered on unlisted platforms
     18 unless they are clearly older vintage than what is described here.
     19 
     20 Note that when considering software versions shipped in distros as
     21 support targets, QEMU considers only the version number, and assumes the
     22 features in that distro match the upstream release with the same
     23 version. In other words, if a distro backports extra features to the
     24 software in their distro, QEMU upstream code will not add explicit
     25 support for those backports, unless the feature is auto-detectable in a
     26 manner that works for the upstream releases too.
     27 
     28 The `Repology`_ site is a useful resource to identify
     29 currently shipped versions of software in various operating systems,
     30 though it does not cover all distros listed below.
     31 
     32 Supported host architectures
     33 ----------------------------
     34 
     35 Those hosts are officially supported, with various accelerators:
     36 
     37   .. list-table::
     38    :header-rows: 1
     39 
     40    * - CPU Architecture
     41      - Accelerators
     42    * - Arm
     43      - kvm (64 bit only), tcg, xen
     44    * - MIPS (little endian only)
     45      - kvm, tcg
     46    * - PPC
     47      - kvm, tcg
     48    * - RISC-V
     49      - kvm, tcg
     50    * - s390x
     51      - kvm, tcg
     52    * - SPARC
     53      - tcg
     54    * - x86
     55      - hax, hvf (64 bit only), kvm, nvmm, tcg, whpx (64 bit only), xen
     56 
     57 Other host architectures are not supported. It is possible to build QEMU system
     58 emulation on an unsupported host architecture using the configure
     59 ``--enable-tcg-interpreter`` option to enable the TCI support, but note that
     60 this is very slow and is not recommended for normal use. QEMU user emulation
     61 requires host-specific support for signal handling, therefore TCI won't help
     62 on unsupported host architectures.
     63 
     64 Non-supported architectures may be removed in the future following the
     65 :ref:`deprecation process<Deprecated features>`.
     66 
     67 Linux OS, macOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD
     68 -----------------------------------------
     69 
     70 The project aims to support the most recent major version at all times. Support
     71 for the previous major version will be dropped 2 years after the new major
     72 version is released or when the vendor itself drops support, whichever comes
     73 first. In this context, third-party efforts to extend the lifetime of a distro
     74 are not considered, even when they are endorsed by the vendor (eg. Debian LTS);
     75 the same is true of repositories that contain packages backported from later
     76 releases (e.g. Debian backports). Within each major release, only the most
     77 recent minor release is considered.
     78 
     79 For the purposes of identifying supported software versions available on Linux,
     80 the project will look at CentOS, Debian, Fedora, openSUSE, RHEL, SLES and
     81 Ubuntu LTS. Other distros will be assumed to ship similar software versions.
     82 
     83 For FreeBSD and OpenBSD, decisions will be made based on the contents of the
     84 respective ports repository, while NetBSD will use the pkgsrc repository.
     85 
     86 For macOS, `Homebrew`_ will be used, although `MacPorts`_ is expected to carry
     87 similar versions.
     88 
     89 Windows
     90 -------
     91 
     92 The project aims to support the two most recent versions of Windows that are
     93 still supported by the vendor. The minimum Windows API that is currently
     94 targeted is "Windows 8", so theoretically the QEMU binaries can still be run
     95 on older versions of Windows, too. However, such old versions of Windows are
     96 not tested anymore, so it is recommended to use one of the latest versions of
     97 Windows instead.
     98 
     99 The project supports building QEMU with current versions of the MinGW
    100 toolchain, either hosted on Linux (Debian/Fedora) or via `MSYS2`_ on Windows.
    101 A more recent Windows version is always preferred as it is less likely to have
    102 problems with building via MSYS2. The building process of QEMU involves some
    103 Python scripts that call os.symlink() which needs special attention for the
    104 build process to successfully complete. On newer versions of Windows 10,
    105 unprivileged accounts can create symlinks if Developer Mode is enabled.
    106 When Developer Mode is not available/enabled, the SeCreateSymbolicLinkPrivilege
    107 privilege is required, or the process must be run as an administrator.
    108 
    109 .. _Homebrew: https://brew.sh/
    110 .. _MacPorts: https://www.macports.org/
    111 .. _MSYS2: https://www.msys2.org/
    112 .. _Repology: https://repology.org/