Leo Famulari <l...@famulari.name> skribis:
> * doc/guix.texi (Invoking guix system): Explain how to boot the QEMU
> images created by vm-image.
Hey! Sorry for the looong delay! I think this is a useful addition.
> @@ -9058,9 +9058,6 @@ Return a virtual machine or disk image of the operating
> system declared
> in @var{file} that stands alone. Use the @option{--image-size} option
> to specify the size of the image.
>
> -When using @code{vm-image}, the returned image is in qcow2 format, which
> -the QEMU emulator can efficiently use.
I’m thinking there are often questions about using GuixSD in a VM etc.,
so it may well deserve one or two sections of its own.
What about leaving the above sentence here, and appending:
@xref{Running GuixSD in a VM}, for more information on how to run the
image in a virtual machine.
?
The rest of the material you added would then go to the new “Running
GuixSD in a VM” section, which could go maybe right after “Invoking guix
system”. WDYT?
> +When using @code{vm-image}, the returned image is in qcow2 format, which
> +the QEMU emulator can efficiently use.
In the new section, this would need to be slightly adjusted to give more
context, like:
One way to run GuixSD in a virtual machine is to build a GuixSD
virtual machine image using @command{guix system vm-image}
(@pxref{Invoking guix system}). The returned image is in qcow2
format, which the @uref{http://qemu.org/, QEMU emulator} can
efficiently use.
> +To run the image in QEMU, copy it out of the store and give yourself
> +permission to write to the copy. When invoking QEMU, you must choose a
> +system emulator that is suitable for your hardware platform. Here is a
> +minimal QEMU invocation that will boot GuixSD on x86_64 hardware:
> +
> +@example
> +$ qemu-system-x86_64 \
> +-net user \
> +-net nic,model=virtio \
> +-enable-kvm \
> +-m 256 \
> +/tmp/qemu-image
> +@end example
I think it would be nicer to put it on 3 lines.
> +And the annotated version:
> +
> +@example
> +# Hardware platform to emulate. This should match the host.
> +$ qemu-system-x86_64 \
> +# Unpriviliged user mode networking. Guest can access host but not vice
> +# versa. If you don't choose a network stack, the boot will fail.
> +-net user \
> +# You must create a network interface of a given model. If you don't
> +# create a NIC, the boot will fail. You can get a list of available NIC
> +# models by running `qemu-system-x86_64 -net nic,model=help`.
> +-net nic,model=virtio \
> +# If your system is x86 with hardware virtualization extensions,
> +# enabling the kernel virtual machine will make things run faster.
> +-enable-kvm \
> +# RAM available to the guest OS. Defaults to 128 megabytes, which is not
> +# enough for the Guix daemon.
> +-m 256 \
> +/tmp/qemu-image
> +@end example
I would typeset it as:
@table @code
@item qemu-system-x86_64
This specifies the hardware platform to…
@item -net user
Enable unpriviliged user-mode networking…
…
@end @table
With all this, it’s going to look perfect! :-)
Another question that people often ask is how to install GuixSD from the
installation image in a VM. Maybe that could be added eventually in a
subsection of this new node?
Thank you!
Ludo’.
