This is guide on setting up QEMU in Debian Linux.

Check Virtualization Extension

Run this command to make sure you’ve enabled virtualization in on your computer. It should be above 0

egrep -c '(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo

If the output is zero then go to bios settings and enable VT-x (Virtualization Technology Extension) for Intel processor and AMD-V for AMD processor.

Install QEMU and Virtual Machine Manager

sudo apt install qemu-kvm qemu-system qemu-utils python3 python3-pip libvirt-clients libvirt-daemon-system bridge-utils virtinst libvirt-daemon virt-manager -y

Verify that Libvirtd service is started

sudo systemctl status libvirtd.service

Start Default Network for Networking

VIRSH is a command to directly interact with our VMs from terminal. We use it to list networks, vm-status and various other tools when we need to make tweaks. Here is how we start the default and make it auto-start after reboot.

sudo virsh net-start default

Network default started

sudo virsh net-autostart default

Network default marked as autostarted

Check status with:

sudo virsh net-list --all

 Name      State      Autostart   Persistent
----------------------------------------------
 default   active       yes          yes

Add User to libvirt to Allow Access to VMs

sudo usermod -aG libvirt $USER
sudo usermod -aG libvirt-qemu $USER
sudo usermod -aG kvm $USER
sudo usermod -aG input $USER
sudo usermod -aG disk $USER

Reboot and you are Finished!

Walkthrough Video