I Can't Seem to Find a way to Download KVM Off of Their Website [Solved]

[Deleted member 111282]

Last night, I was running Ubuntu MATE in Virtualbox, and when I was installing updates for it, it ate up too many resources and severely slowed down my computer. Even though I am running relatively-old hardware, and I did close down any programs I wasn't using (as @Tolkem suggested in a previous thread), I now find Virtualbox too bloated and resource-heavy. Because of this, I went to AlternativeTo.Net to find something that was lighter-weight, and found KVM. While it sounds like something right up my alley, the problem is they don't seem to have a download link for it. I've also gone to Software Manager to look for the program, and although there are packages for it, the program itself isn't on there either.

 

[f33dm3bits]

What distribution are you running on your host system where you are currently using Virtualbox, you should be able to just install it using your package manager?

 

[Deleted member 111282]

What distribution are you running, you should be able to just install it using your package manager?

Mint 19.3. I wasn't aware it was in Synaptic Package Manager until you mentioned that. Anyway, thanks!

 

[f33dm3bits]

How to Install KVM on Linux Mint 21?

KVM is a virtualization solution that helps create Virtual Machines just like VMware or VirtualBox. This article explains KVM installation on Linux Mint.

linuxhint.com

 

[Tolkem]

Because of this, I went to AlternativeTo.Net to find something that was lighter-weight, and found KVM.

First, you already have KVM https://www.redhat.com/en/topics/virtualization/what-is-KVM and I quote

KVM is part of Linux. If you’ve got Linux 2.6.20 or newer, you’ve got KVM. KVM was first announced in 2006 and merged into the mainline Linux kernel version a year later. Because KVM is part of existing Linux code, it immediately benefits from every new Linux feature, fix, and advancement without additional engineering.

You can check with

sudo modinfo kvm

you might see something like this

sudo modinfo kvm
[sudo] password for root:  
filename: /lib/modules/5.3.18-lp152.72-default/kernel/arch/x86/kvm/kvm.ko
license: GPL
author: Qumranet
suserelease: openSUSE Leap 15.2
srcversion: 06E409C66A23B86FF496CFF
depends: irqbypass
retpoline: Y
intree: Y
name: kvm
vermagic: 5.3.18-lp152.72-default SMP mod_unload modversions
sig_id: PKCS#7
signer: openSUSE Secure Boot CA

What you're really looking for is QEMU. In the past, there used to be a qemu-kvm package but is now deprecated and all you need is qemu alone, then when invoking the program you use the

-accel kvm

flag to tell qemu to use it. You can use qemu either via CLI or GUI using virt-manager. Note that all of these can be installed from the pkg manager

sudo apt-get install qemu

or

sudo apt-get install virt-manager

there's no need to download anything, unless you plan to build it from source. I use qemu for my Linux guests which in my opinion does a better job and have VBox for a Windows 7 VM only since I've found that it handles it better.

 

[Deleted member 111282]

First, you already have KVM https://www.redhat.com/en/topics/virtualization/what-is-KVM and I quote

You can check with

sudo modinfo kvm

you might see something like this

sudo modinfo kvm
[sudo] password for root: 
filename: /lib/modules/5.3.18-lp152.72-default/kernel/arch/x86/kvm/kvm.ko
license: GPL
author: Qumranet
suserelease: openSUSE Leap 15.2[ATTACH type="full"]9156[/ATTACH]
srcversion: 06E409C66A23B86FF496CFF
depends: irqbypass
retpoline: Y
intree: Y
name: kvm
vermagic: 5.3.18-lp152.72-default SMP mod_unload modversions
sig_id: PKCS#7
signer: openSUSE Secure Boot CA

What you're really looking for is QEMU. In the past, there used to be a qemu-kvm package but is now deprecated and all you need is qemu alone, then when invoking the program you use the

-accel kvm

flag to tell qemu to use it. You can use qemu either via CLI or GUI using virt-manager. Note that all of these can be installed from the pkg manager

sudo apt-get install qemu

or

sudo apt-get install virt-manager

there's no need to download anything, unless you plan to build it from source. I use qemu for my Linux guests which in my opinion does a better job and have VBox for a Windows 7 VM only since I've found that it handles it better.

I'll admit I had a brainfart