Using Qemu with iso files
 

Hi all,

I installed Qemu and Qemulator and downloaded several image files. I had no problem using the image files (.ffs format) that are free to download from the Qemu website. I was able to use these either through the command line or the Qemulator software.

What I downloaded on my own were several iso files of different linux distros. I am trying to learn to set everything up using the command line, instead of just relying on the Qemulator software. However, no matter what I do, I receive an error message from Qemu stating: "Boot failed: not a bootable disk"

I am trying to boot using the -hda option since I don't have a CD ROM for these image files. Do I need to create one and use the -cdrom switch? Seems like there would be a way to use the iso file you already have. Does it need to be in another format then .iso?

I have searched and cannot find any clear example of what to put if you already have the image file. All the websites give examples of using a CD ROM.

I would be using something similar to: /home/user/image.iso. Where user = my username and image = the name of the image file, etc. Could someone walk me through the command to start the install of these distros through Qemu? I did create the image qcow file that will hold the installation first, by the way.

Ok, I realized what I was doing. I needed to put the -cdrom switch to emulate the Live CD. Makes sense.

I have Debian installing as we speak. Ah, joy.

Now my only question is do I first need to use the qemu-img create command to create a growable qcow image file first? Or is this not necessary?

That's how I got it installing with Debian, using the following command:

"qemu -hda /home/steve/iso/debian.cow -cdrom debian-503-i386-netinst.iso"

The debian.cow file is what I first created using the qemu-img command. So, do this first for the other .iso files (FreeBSD, Puppy Linux, etc)?