bug: RAM allocation for macOS and Windows VMs can prevent VMs from booting

[bennydente]

Expected behavior

running "./quickemu --vm windows-10.conf --display spice" should run windows VM

Actual behavior

running "./quickemu --vm windows-10.conf --display spice" show error:

Quickemu 4.9.4 using /usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64 v8.2.2

• Host: Fedora Linux 40 (Workstation Edition) running Linux 6.8 (smithix)
• CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4700MQ CPU @ 2.40GHz
• CPU VM: 1 Socket(s), 2 Core(s), 2 Thread(s), 4G RAM ERROR! You have insufficient RAM to run windows in a VM

Steps to reproduce the behavior

./quickemu --vm windows-10.conf --display spice

Additional context

I thing in this code:

if [ "${guest_os}" == "macos" ] || [ "${guest_os}" == "windows" ] || [ "${guest_os}" == "windows-server" ]; then
    if [ "${RAM_VM//G/}" -lt 8 ]; then
        echo "ERROR! You have insufficient RAM to run ${guest_os} in a VM"
        exit 1
    fi
fi

RAM_VM should be RAM_HOST

System Information

---

    Quickemu 4.9.4

---

Distro: Fedora Linux 40 (Workstation Edition) Kernel: Linux 6.8.8-300.fc40.x86_64 x86_64 Memory: 16G GPU:

• Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 06)

[flexiondotorg]

Workaround You can workaround this issue by modifying the VM configuration and adding ram="8G"

The logic you quoted is correct, but the error message is not clear. The intent here is to stop Windows and macOS VMs from running when there is not adequate RAM allocated to them.

Based on the RAM in your host computer, the VM RAM allocation calculated by quickemu will not be sufficient.

I'll have a think about the best way to allocate guest VM RAM to macOS and Windows also how to present this error/warning.

[lj3954]

Workaround You can workaround this issue by modifying the VM configuration and adding ram="8G"

The logic you quoted is correct, but the error message is not clear. The intent here is to stop Windows and macOS VMs from running when there is not adequate RAM allocated to them.

Based on the RAM in your host computer, the VM RAM allocation calculated by quickemu will not be sufficient.

I'll have a think about the best way to allocate guest VM RAM to macOS and Windows also how to present this error/warning.

The VMs will boot with less than 8GB of RAM, correct? Windows has a 4GB requirement if I'm not mistaken. It should probably present a warning (i.e. "It is highly recommended to allocate at least 8GB of RAM to ${guest_os} VMs") rather than exiting with an error.

[bennydente]

Hi, thanks. In my experiences Windows 10 VM run fine on 4GB of RAM, but now i have configure 8GB of RAM on VM that not really need.

[flexiondotorg]

I bumped the RAM requirement for macOS. I'll modify the conditional so the allocation for macOS and Windows is different.

[flexiondotorg]

Here is my proposed fix @bennydente.

• https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/pull/1193

Feedback welcome :+1: