VIRTUAL Machines on LINUX with KVM, QEMU and Virt-Manager. Run ANY operating system.

In this installation guide gor KVM/QEMU and Virt-Manager, you will learn how to install a powerhouse to run virtual computers and several operating systems on your Linux computer. We will install and enable virtualization.

KVM stands for Kernel-based Virtual Machine. This software allows users to run multiple virtual machines with different operating systems. KVM is open-source, and has been refined and improved over the last ten years.

We will also install a program called virt-manager to add and update your virtual machines with a graphical user interface.

In KVM you can install nearly all operating systems. All linux distributions are supported and of course also Windows 11. I use Windows 11 and Office 365 installed in a virtual machine for my work. And it works extremly stable, fast and it's easy to maintain.

You can find the KVM installation script here:

A note to viewers using Ubuntu: Please search on Google for an installation tutorial. There are many well documented options available.

Welcome to my channel! I'm Stephan Raabe, a Digital Marketing Professional with over 20 years of experience in B2B digital marketing, computer science, and web technologies.

Linux is an exceptional operating system that powers my business and personal life every day. It's stable, fast, and highly customizable to meet individual needs. On this channel, I share my Arch Linux setup, share experiences with differnet Linux distributions, featuring window managers like Hyprland and Qtile.

Whether you're a Linux enthusiast or someone looking to optimize your tech setup, there's something here for you. Subscribe and let's explore together!

[Jeff_Seely]

Thank you Stephan. I have been using Virtualbox and running a Win10 machine on my Arcolinux host. I find it very heavy on resources and occasionally lagging. I understand that kvm/qemu is much better at sparing resources and will be making a Windows VM in Virtmanager. This is an excellent instructional video and was easy to follow and get up and running. Thank you.

[cainnzm]

Incredible Tutorial, thank you so much for taking the time to make this!

[louisdt]

Thanks Stephan. You are by far my favourite Linux youtuber. Keep up the good work!

[jimmytubedk]

Sir you are super good to explain, thank you for your best website, ould you please make more video with qemu, really you are the only one who explaining KVM so professional and easy for everyone.

[ashterpz]

fantastic video, KVM is one of the reasons i wanted to switch to linux, and you explained it a lot better, more level headed and in depth than the rest of the videos ive watched. great stuff!

[EstebanFonsecaAR]

Virt Manager is superior to VirtualBox and VMWare by far !! :) I was able to create a full Sun Clutser with Solaris 10 X86, with separate cluster hartbeat networks, and another separate iSCSI network with Ubuntu server as a iSCSI SAN, worked like a charm, so far I did cluster filesystem, planning to add HA mysql to the cluster soon.

[CuttinEJ]

That worked! I’ve been struggling with virtual machines for a couple of weeks. VirtualBox works mostly, but I can’t get Hyperland to work. Until just now I couldn’t get kvm/qemu to create a VM. Arch is installing right now with Hyprland. Hopefully it will work this time. Looking forward to watching more of your videos on Arch and Hyprland. Thank you 🙏

[seydinabadiane]

You did such a great job, keep it up ;)

[jeffreyplum]

Note You may want to set your KVM networking to use a bridged connection. Bridging makes your VMs. appear to be real machines on your local network This is great for servers Samba, local Web Servers and other resources you want your local network to reach. By default Kvm VMs us Nat on an isolated internal network. Nat supports outbound connections but hides your VMs from the local network. NAT used in most cases by your local router to block connections originating from the nasty outside Internet. There are many YouTube videos on setting up a network bridge. It is just adjusting some internal Linux settings to create a virtual switch your VMs and other programs connect through.. There are tools to do it on alinux desktop or even on servers with only a text console.

[socio]

Hey. What would happen if you simply installed the virt manager without changing anything in the config files? Would it not work at all? Would it work sub-optimally?

[dci-WatchTutorials]

According to the Linux Foundation and Arch Wiki, "Note: the bridge-utils package is DEPRECATED, instead use the bridge command from iproute2 package." But you say to install it. Do you know what's going on with this? I'm confused.

[Ehren]

Any ideas how to fix this issue?

$ virsh net-autostart default
error: failed to get network 'default'
error: Network not found: no network with matching name 'default'

[larbesabdellah]

I did this command and let a space by mistake between ~/ and .docker, rm -rf ~/ .docker, all my home directories were deleted. Is that the real cause ?

[cbbcbb]

What versions of windows can be run as a guest OS?
What about Debian as the host?

[davidwayne]

CAN a VM be used to run ANDROID APPS??? I have a security system and don't want to have my phone on all the time for it... want it on my would that work? I do NOT use windows (I don't like CROOKED company's trash on my machine)..