Hi all,
I am running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on a pc. I am trying to figure out how to emulate a PowerPC using qemu. All the articles I read run on about how great and simple it is-but I can't seem to get it to work.

I downloaded an image to try:
debian_squeeze_powerpc_standard.qcow2

On the download websites, it says I can run this as follows:
qemu-system-ppc -hda debian_squeeze_powerpc_standard.qcow2

When I do, I get a blank qemu window with a title bar. Apparently it's not quite this simple.
Can anyone help? I am a newbie to qemu.

There is usually a fault file text that can be read.

Usually you need a bit more info.

Example qemu-system-ppc -hda linuxppc.qcow2 -cdrom debian-ppc.iso -boot d -m 512

Also all these files need to be in the correct subdirectory usually.

The version of qemu that you have also may have a huge impact on the way you create a vm. I think that if you just put in the command without any parameters it will spit out the man page or so.

Your version needs to be compiled with support for ppc