Step-by-step QEMU compilation under Windows (MinGW/MSYS)

[comike]

Updates to this guide:

2006/01/07:
- URL of the Savannah CVS Server has been corrected.

2005/08/06:
- Added compilation steps for QVM86 accelerator (multiple changes from step 11 onwards).
- Added how to start and stop the QVM86 accelerator layer in Troubleshooting section.
- Added "--enable-adlib" switch on QEmu configure (step 12, thanks Ronald).
- Removed "SDL.dll" lines from steps 15 and 17, as it's not needed when QEmu is statically compiled (thanks Roland, again).
- Added tip about using full-screen with SDL_VIDEODRIVER=windib.

2005/07/25:
- Added cd command before downloading QEMU from CVS on step 10.
- Added advice about newer MinGW versions on the Tips section.

2005/06/11:
- Extract directx package before compiling QEMU (step 9 is now step 7).

2005/06/10:
- Added some tips on the top of the guide.
- Some corrections to the steps of the guide.
- Added a troubleshooting section at the end (including how to download a previous version from CVS!)

Before starting, some tips:

- You can copy the commands listed here and paste into Msys window using a middle-mouse click.
- You will see that Msys and Msys-DTK try to install on something like Msys\1.0. We don't need the 1.0 at all (it's the version number), that's why it's not listed in the guide.
- Newer MinGW versions (MinGW > v4.0) will compile an unworking QEMU executable. Please use the links provided below for a working MinGW version.

What you need:

- Some patience
- MSYS-1.0.10.exe [ link ]
- msysDTK-1.0.1.exe [ link ]
- MinGW-3.1.0-1.exe [ link ]
- SDL-1.2.8.tar.gz [ link ]
- zlib-1.2.2.tar.gz [ link ]
- directx-devel.tar.gz [ link ]

1. Install MSYS-1.0.10.exe where you want (i.e: C:\Msys). When finished, you will see a system prompt asking if you wany to continue with post install. Type n so this isn't done.

2. Install msysDTK-1.0.1.exe in the same directory as MSYS-1.0.10.exe. (i.e: C:\Msys)

3. Install MinGW-3.1.0-1.exe under "mingw" folder inside your MSYS folder (i.e: C:\Msys\mingw). The installer will probably warn you the directory already exists, press Yes to install it there anyway.

4. Now you must open MSYS. Go to the directory where you installed MSYS, and run msys.bat (i.e: C:\Msys\msys.bat).

5. Type pwd in the MSYS window. It will show your home folder (/home/username).

6. With your preferred file manager (probably Windows Explorer, mine is Total Commander ), copy:

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SDL-1.2.8.tar.gz
zlib-1.2.2.tar.gz
directx-devel.tar.gz

under your home directory in MSYS folder (i.e: C:\Msys\home\username).

7. We must extract the directx devel package to mingw folder, as it's needed by SDL:

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cd
tar -C /mingw -xzvf directx-devel.tar.gz

8. We will begin by installing SDL. Type the following in MSYS:

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tar -xzvf SDL-1.2.8.tar.gz (this will extract SDL package)
cd SDL-1.2.8
./configure --prefix=/mingw
make
make install

It's possible that the ./configure command will try to connect to network (don't ask me why), you can safely block it.
This will compile and install SDL headers to the correct path (it takes some time, 8 min. on a fast computer).

9. Now you must go to home directory and extract zlib package:

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cd
tar -xzvf zlib-1.2.2.tar.gz
cd zlib-1.2.2
./configure --prefix=/mingw
make test
make install

This will compile and install zlib headers to the correct path.

10. Now we will download QEMU from current CVS:

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cd
export CVS_RSH="ssh"
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anoncvs@cvs.savannah.nongnu.org:/cvsroot/qemu co qemu

You must answer "yes" when it asks if you want to continue connecting to CVS.
Once finished, enter QEMU folder using this command:

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cd qemu

11. If you want, you can compile a kernel accelerator (QVM86) for QEmu (recommended). If not, you can skip this step.
We will download QVM86 from CVS, in a similar way we've done before with QEMU. Then we must apply the QVM86 patch to QEmu sources.
So you need to type the following commands:

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cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anoncvs@cvs.savannah.nongnu.org:/cvsroot/qvm86 co qvm86
patch -p0 < qvm86/patch.qvm86

12. So we will finally start compiling QEmu at twelfth step. Run the following commands:

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./configure --target-list=i386-softmmu --static --enable-adlib

You must get the following output:

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Install prefix    /c/Program Files/Qemu
BIOS directory    /c/Program Files/Qemu
binary directory  /c/Program Files/Qemu
Source path       /home/username/qemu
C compiler        gcc
make              make
host CPU          i386
host big endian   no
target list       i386-softmmu
gprof enabled     no
static build      yes
SDL support       yes
SDL static link   yes
mingw32 support   yes
Adlib support     no
FMOD support      no
kqemu             no
qvm86             yes

QVM86 will only be available if you followed step 11.
Take a look at SDL lines. If some of them are not supported ("no"), then it's probable you won't get graphical output. So go back to step 7.

13. This will configure only the i386 system emulator. If you want to compile all targets (i386, ppc, space, x86_64), then remove the --target-list argument from the previous ./configure command-line. You might have some problems, though.

14. Now, we will start compiling QEMU by typing "make". It will probably stop saying it doesn't find texi2html and pod2man commands.
This is needed for building the man documentation. I don't need it at all, so I create a pair of void files instead and give them execution permissions. If you want the documentation, go search the packages yourself at Google. So:

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echo -n >/bin/texi2html >/bin/pod2man
chmod 755 /bin/texi2html /bin/pod2man

15. Ok, type "make" again and if all goes well, it will finally compile QEMU. You will get a rather huge qemu.exe file (3 Mb) on i386-softmmu folder, so we will shrink using strip command. We will do the same with qemu-img.exe and SDL.dll library:

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strip i386-softmmu/qemu.exe
strip qemu-img.exe

16. If you download QVM86 in step 11, then you can also strip this driver file:

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strip qvm86/qvm86.sys

Then, outside MSYS window, you must install QVM86 driver by right-click on qvm86.inf, then clicking "Install" from context menu.
If you installed MSYS in the default path, you will find this file in C:\Msys\home\username\qemu\qvm86.

17. And finally, you can close MSYS. Now you must copy the following files from your MSYS folder (i.e: C:\Msys) where you want (i.e: C:\QEmu) with your preferred file manager:

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home/username/qemu/i386-softmmu/qemu.exe
home/username/qemu/qemu-img.exe
home/username/qemu/pc-bios/bios.bin
home/username/qemu/pc-bios/ppc_rom.bin
home/username/qemu/pc-bios/vgabios.bin
home/username/qemu/pc-bios/vgabios-cirrus.bin

Troubleshooting:

- To start QVM86 accelerator, you must type the following command on a console window:

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net start qvm86

When you've finished using QEmu, you can stop QVM86 accelerator using the following command:

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net stop qvm86

- If you achieve to get QEmu compiled correctly, but after that, QEmu does not start, try to set SDL_VIDEODRIVER=windib before running QEmu.

- If QEmu crashes when going full-screen, then you must also try to set SDL_VIDEODRIVER=windib before running QEmu.

- If you have followed all the steps from the guide, but QEmu doesn't compile correctly, perhaps the current CVS has introduced some bugs that affect QEmu compilation.
In this case, we will need to compile a previous version from QEmu. So in step 10, we will download a previous version from CVS.
After exporting the CVS_RSH variable, we will execute the following statement:

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cvs -z3 -d:ext:anoncvs@savannah.nongnu.org:/cvsroot/qemu co -D <YYYYMMDD> qemu

This will download the CVS version from the specified date <YYYYMMDD>. For example:

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cvs -z3 -d:ext:anoncvs@savannah.nongnu.org:/cvsroot/qemu co -D 20050603 qemu

This will download QEMU version from June 3, 2005.

- Finally, you can reduce qemu executables and sdl library size a little more using an executable packer like UPX.

Good luck!

PS: I will update this post according to the problems that you find while compiling and installing QEMU.
PS: Please inform me if you find gramatical errors, as I have an average english level.

[DreckSoft]

Small but important note:
It will not work with MinGW 4.1.1
Compilation works fine but qemu will crash instantly (tried 03.06.05, 01.07.05 and 23.07.05).
23.07.05 works with MinGW 3.1.0 (and even with qvm86 patch)

[Glomet]

comike... thank you very much for this very precious resource!!!
It helped me saving a lot of hours of tries and retries!!!

Just a really little correction:

following your instructions, at step 10 you suggest how to download the sources, but at step 9 we were CD'ed to ~/zlib-1.2.2, so, at step 10, the cvs image is downloaded in ~/zlib-1.2.2/qemu, and not in ~/qemu as instead it would be expected to be.

So I suggest you to correct step 10 simply adding the usual "cd" command at the beginning of the code-lines.

Thank you again, your howto is really as simple as a step-forward, and it took me to have the qemu compilated in really a few minutes!!

Cheers
- Umberto

[comike]

Thanks for your advice, Glomet.

I will add the cd command in step 10 and the remark from DreckSoft about latest MinGW.

[Guest]

Updates to this guide:

2005/07/25:
- Added cd command before downloading QEMU from CVS on step 10.
- Added advice about newer MinGW versions on the Tips section.

Thankx for your teaching.

But I have a questing:
If want to compile Kqemu with Qemu under Windows,
how can I do?

Can you kindly teaching again?

[comike]

Of course I can. I was already thinking on writing how to compile qvm86.

I will do as soon as I get some free time.

[Ronald]

Hi,

I don't use msys so don't blame me if the following tips doesn't work at all.

-SDL and directx (step 7 and

you can get a more optimized SDL library if you install/use nasm for SDL compilation, maybe it is shipped with msys (dont know???)
About directx , look at the configure output near the end , before Makefiles create you should see if directx support will be build in.

here is how I do (SDL-1.2.8 is in /usr/src), needed libraries are installed with mingw32 or win32api, no need to copy the whole directx-devel content.

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CPPFLAGS='-I/usr/src/win32/directx/include -I/usr/src/win32/SDL-1.2.8/src/video/windx5' ./configure --prefix=/cross/mingw32/i386-mingw32 --enable-shared --build=i686-pure-linux --host=i386-mingw32 --disable-debug --program-prefix=i386-mingw32-

-zlib (step 9)

look in the win32 directory there is a Makefile.gcc , you can use this one to build libz.a, libzdll.a and zlib1.dll , need to be edited.

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make -f win32/Makefile.gcc

-qemu configure and build (step 11)

you can add --enable-adlib to have midi support in qemu, --static flag is not really needed since you are copying SDL.dll later.
Instead of coying all the binaries (step 15) , it 's better to use the make install target , this will strip qemu*.exe , you only need to strip SDL.dll at step 14
[/code]

[comike]

As you can see, I've updated my guide. It now includes new steps on how to compile QVM86 accelerator layer, and I've made some fixing here and there.

Hope it helps (and works! )

[Guest]

Step 11:

Line

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cvs -z3 -d:ext:anoncvs@savannah.nongnu.org:/cvsroot/qemu co qemu

should be

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cvs -z3 -d:ext:anoncvs@savannah.nongnu.org:/cvsroot/qvm86 co qvm86

Stefan

[vbtricks]

It's me again (the Guest from the reply in front of this one).

I tried compiling it with qvm86, but unfortunately the make command in step 15 fails (kqemu.c line 438).

Also tried to compile a version with support for kqemu (by changing all

kqemu="no"

to

kqemu="yes"

).
The second one compiled successfully and "info kqemu" in the monitor returned "kqemu is enabled". I also followed the steps to install kqemu and started it by "net start kqemu" (returned success). But the guest system is not a bit faster at all.


What am I doing wrong?

Stefan

[comike]

Step 11: ...

I thought I'd already fixed that mistake. Now it's fixed. Thanks for your advice.

About QVM86 compiling, I had the same problem in kemu.c yesterday while compiling QEmu+QVM86.
I made a workaround adding lines 437 and 441 as shown below:

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437 #ifndef _WIN32
438 #if KQEMU_VERSION >= 0x010100
439     kenv->efer = env->efer;
440 #endif
441 #endif

Hope it helps.

About speed, KQEmu speeds some processor calculations, I think. But the real bottleneck stays on File I/O and graphics, where KQEmu does nothing.

[vbtricks]

Thanks, I succeeded in compiling.

Unfortunately it doesn't bring the speed advantage I thought it would. Thanks anyway.


Stefan

[Guest]

comike,

Can you supply the download its last compilation of QEMU+qvm86 in some place?

[mok]

Thanks, I succeeded in compiling.

Unfortunately it doesn't bring the speed advantage I thought it would. Thanks anyway.


Stefan

I compiled qemu (0.7.1, not from cvs) + kqemu. I didn't enable qvm86, but even without it guest OS works much faster now, so I'm able to run KDE 3.4.2 on Slackware - slow, but pretty acceptable.

[mok]

qemu 0.7.1 built with kqemu support is available here:

http://byak.sinp.msu.ru/qemu/

Unzip qemu.exe and use it as usual.

Don't forget to start the kqemu service from Windows command prompt:

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> net start kqemu

Check if kqemu support is available on qemu console (Ctrl+Alt+2),

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> info kqemu