Intro
QEMU (Quick Emulator) is a machine emulator and virtualizer. It allows you to run operating systems and programs to run in an isolated environment.
QEMU can operate in two main modes:
-
Emulation: Simulates a different computer architecture, allowing software built for one CPU architecture to run on another.
- Example: Running an ARM Linux system on an x86 PC.
- Uses software-based instruction translation, resulting in lower performance.
-
Virtualization: Runs a guest operating system using the same CPU architecture as the host while leveraging hardware acceleration.
- Example: Running an x86 Linux VM on an x86 PC using KVM.
- Provides near-native performance.