QEMU (Quick Emulator) is an open source software that allows you to emulate different types of hardware and operating systems in a virtual machine. QEMU is capable of emulating a wide variety of platforms

qemu-system-x86_64 emulates an x86-64 system without an operating system with RAM: configurable amount (by default, it is usually 128 MB), Graphics Card: A standard VGA graphics card
Sound Card: None (unless a sound card is specified), Operating System: None (A hard disk image or bootable device with an operating system must be provided).

A computer with the chosen architecture is emulated, and without an operating system.

install qemu with homebrew (in mac):

brew install qemu

qemu installation location and its different architectures:

/usr/local/Cellar/qemu/9.2.1/bin

/usr/local/Cellar/qemu/9.2.1/bin ยป ls
elf2dmp qemu-system-loongarch64 qemu-system-riscv64
qemu-edid qemu-system-m68k qemu-system-rx
qemu-img qemu-system-microblaze qemu-system-s390x
qemu-io qemu-system-microblazeel qemu-system-sh4
qemu-nbd qemu-system-mips qemu-system-sh4eb
qemu-storage-daemon qemu-system-mips64 qemu-system-sparc
qemu-system-aarch64 qemu-system-mips64el qemu-system-sparc64
qemu-system-alpha qemu-system-mipsel qemu-system-tricore
qemu-system-arm qemu-system-or1k qemu-system-x86_64
qemu-system-avr qemu-system-ppc qemu-system-xtensa
qemu-system-hppa qemu-system-ppc64 qemu-system-xtensaeb
qemu-system-i386 qemu-system-riscv32

They are all executable files

qemu command to emulate an x86_64 architecture and execute program.img

qemu-system-x86_64 -drive file=program.img,format=raw

another terminal will open emulating that architecture


i386 refers to the 32-bit processor architecture developed by Intel, also known as IA-32. This architecture was widely used in personal computers from the 1980s to the early 2000s.

x86_64, on the other hand, refers to the 64-bit processor architecture developed by AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) and later adopted by Intel.

  • i386: 32-bit architecture, older
  • x86_64: 64-bit architecture, more modern and powerful

The qemu-system-i386 and qemu-system-x86_64 executables refer to virtual machine emulators for these two different architectures.


other things:

Cirrus Video Mode

qemu-system-i386 -L /usr/local/Cellar/qemu/9.2.1/bin -vga cirrus -cdrom ~/booteable/b.iso -serial stdio

The -cdrom option is used to specify the ISO image to be used as the boot media. If you want to change the boot media, you must modify this option.