QEMU Accelerator Achieves Near-Native Performance

An anonymous reader writes "QEMU is a generic and open source processor emulator which achieves a good emulation speed by using dynamic translation. Its sporting a new module called the 'Accelerator' which can achieve near native speeds, and currently runs on Linux 2.4.x and 2.6.x kernels. This means you could theoretically run Windows (or another OS) on a Linux machine at near native speeds without buying a commercial emulator. The catch is that although QEMU is released under various open source licenses, the Accelerator uses a free (as in beer) license because the module is a 'closed source proprietary product.' Fabrice Bellard does mention that he would consider open sourcing the Accelerator under certain conditions."

Comments

Oh yeah!

[Saint Aardvark]

I've been trying out VMware's latest beta at work (journal entry on that in an hour or so) to run W2K on Linux, in order to try some patch automation software. It's great, but I'd love it if there was a Free program that'd do this.

I dearly hope the accelerator gets GPL'd. Between sysadmin work (reverting to a snapshot ROX) and, just maybe, being able to move W2K people to Linux (there's only a handful of applications we need [damn you, Texas Instruments! Where's your Linux version of Code Composer?], and remote admin is just soooooooo much better with a Unix), I'd be very happy if a) this thing works as well as it's supposed to, and b) if there was some sort of tip jar I could kick in a few bucks to (like with Blender, I believe), and get it released when there was enough money.

Incidentally, I tried installing W2K on qemu w/o the accelerator. When I left work on Friday, it was finishing up the second stage of installation; it was slow as molasses, but seemed to be working. This seems to contradict the note re: disk full during install problem noted on the support page. It's always possible I just haven't hit it yet, but does anyone else have any experience with W2K and qemu?

iPC?

[Doc Ruby]

Can you cut & paste between the Windows::apps and Linux::apps? Can each OS instance get its own IP# for IPC?

This app could offer a nice technique for "embedded" Windows: Run Linux, and QEMU::Windows with the Windows "screen" hidden or suppressed. Run vncserver on the Windows instance, and a vncviewer on the Linux desktop. Run a watchdog app that pings Windows and its apps, restarting them when they freeze. Put the host in the closet, and never hear surf music again.

fabrice's other projects

[harlemjoe]

afaik the only way to run wine on linux-ppc (WINE is not an emulator, and so is x86 dependent) is by using qemu...

also check out darwine... integrated qemu + wine under OS X so you can http://darwine.opendarwin.org/ click on windows apps and run them seamlessly in OS X

fabrice bellard is a processor emulating god imho

Escaping the Palladium Jail?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Could this be used to sufficiently virtualize a 'palladiumized' system such that we could run a hypothetical DRM-up-the-ass version of Windows in it and then from the host OS side peek at all the secret data that the copyright cartel thinks is locked down?

Re:Escaping the Palladium Jail?

[Anonym0us Cow Herd]

NO. Not if the hardware has "trusted computing".

The trust begins at the hardware.

The motherboard must first examine the bootloader to see that it trusts it. If so, then trust is passed to the (un-compromised) boot loader.

The boot loader can look at the OS it is loading to see if it is trusted. If so, then trust can be given to the OS. An untrusted OS could be loaded, but it would have no trust. The untrusted OS can't ask the TPM chip "Hey, sign this for me using your secret private key."

If the OS is trusted, it can then determine if certian applications are trusted. QEMU would not be trusted. It could run, but would not be trusted.

When you run RIAA-Approved software, it is able to prove, via. a chain of trust (certificates) that it is trusted and running on a non-compromised system.

So why can't QEMU emulate the TPM chip? Because it does not know any secret keys. Each TPM has a secret key. And that key is a secret. Forever sealed in the chip. Even the manufacturer does not know the key. The key is a true secret. Nothing outside of the TPM chip itself has ever seen that private key. The TPM's public key was signed at the factory. You and everyone can know the public key of any TPM. And those public keys can be proven authentic because of their certificates (i.e. they are signed). You could generate an emulated TPM public/private key, but the public key is not signed by Dell. You know the public key of your box, but not the secret private key, which you can probably never know.