How to Install Latest Qemu on Slackware Linux – Step-by-step

How to Install

2. 2. Pre-Installation Checks

   Check if your CPU supports hardware virtualization:

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

   If Output > 0 your processor supports virtualization.
   (Make sure virtualization is enabled in BIOS.)
   If output is zero, you can still use QEMU without hardware acceleration.

3. 3. Install QEMU and Dependencies

   Slackware does not have all virtualization packages in core, so use `slackpkg` and `sbopkg`:

   Update repositories:

   sudo slackpkg update

   Install QEMU and supporting packages (via sbopkg if needed):

   sudo slackpkg install qemu

   sudo sbopkg -i libvirt

   sudo sbopkg -i virt-manager edk2-ovmf bridge-utils

4. 4. Enable and Start Libvirt

   Slackware uses traditional rc scripts:

   sudo ln -s /etc/rc.d/rc.libvirtd /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/S99libvirtd

   sudo /etc/rc.d/rc.libvirtd start

5. 5. Add User to libvirt Group

   Add your user to the libvirt group:

   sudo groupadd libvirt

   sudo usermod -aG libvirt $(whoami)

   Then log out and back in to apply group changes.

6. 6. Verify Installation

   Check libvirt is running:

   virsh list --all

   No VMs listed yet is normal — service is running.

7. 7. Create and Run a VM

   Use Virt-Manager or virsh to create KVM virtual machines. Launch Virt-Manager via:

   virt-manager

   Follow the GUI to create a VM, assign CPU, RAM, disk, and enable hardware virtualization.