This project has been idle for too long

[lv-zheng]

The maintainer of this project, Tobimensch, seems too busy to take care of this project. The last commit was almost a year ago. I wonder if this project could be kept alive with community effort?

[tobimensch]

You're right.

I can't really justify to work on this (although I would like to do it again!) when I get so little support from the community.

I started a crowd funding campaign but got no response. If some people had made even small donations, my motivation to do something would have been much higher. I can't live from air and love alone, you know.

In spite of this I might code for aqemu again, but only if I have a personal need for it and at the moment I'm not using VMs a lot myself.

If you want a project to succeed, why not help out the person who does the most work on it. Some people don't seem to understand that open source developers also have to eat and pay bills. Small contributions make a big difference!

[tobimensch]

@lv-zheng

I thought about this again and created a patreon account.

If you feel that my work is important to you, you can become a patron at:

https://www.patreon.com/tobimensch

If some of you sponsor me, I'll immediately begin to work on aqemu (or other free software projects) again.

You can make a difference by simply "buying me a drink":

[oldschool001]

Tobi,

I have been using AQEMU for about a year. I'm a novice, so it has made using QEMU possible for me, up until now. I have had to migrate to a new computer and am doing a fresh install and have no idea now how to set up a basic Ubuntu virtual machine on AQEMU now. Well, after several hours of trying I got an 800 x 600 resolution version up and running, but I need better resolution and options are greyed out. Short of it is this. I don't want to be a patron, but I've got $50 if you can just provide a step by step tutorial on how to set up a basic ubuntu or debian vm on a debian system. Sorry admins for discussing this here, but I couldn't find another way to communicate this. If you put this on your project page, you might get more newbies to adopt this. Most newbies would have moved on by now. Just provide a way to pay, like PayPal or mainstream US method.

Thanks.

[tobimensch]

@oldschool001: I suppose it's not difficult to become a patron as the service seems to be rather popular nowadays. Paypal is accepted there.

For $50 I can certainly do what you want. Can you point me to which ISO file you used to install ubuntu? Which AQEMU version are you using?

I would update the guide until you tell me that you're satisfied.

I created another crowd funding page a while ago: https://salt.bountysource.com/teams/aqemu

There you can make a one time payment and I believe you don't have to become a member there! You can pay with paypal there as well.

If you pay today, I can start to work on this immediately.

[tobimensch]

I would also like to know which desktop environment you prefer to use so I can make the guide specifically for it. Gnome, KDE or anything else?

[tobimensch]

If you give me your email address, I can contact you and give you my paypal address.

[oldschool001]

Money sent. I just installed Debian Stretch on an old laptop with Gnome 3.22.2. I downloaded the latest version of AQEMU. I was trying to install ubuntu 16.04, and in fact did, but can only get the 800x600 resolution. Us bcr 8 on@gmx.com as email address, except spell out the number 8 instead of using the number and leave no spaces.

[tobimensch]

@oldschool001 So it's version 0.9.2 of AQEMU? (just making 100% sure here)

Thanks for the money! Your support is very much appreciated.

I got to get something to eat now. I'll create a guide for you this evening. I'll send it to your email address first and publish it for everybody to read later.

A higher resolution than 800x600 should be easily attainable.

Check for an email in about 3-4 hours, then you should be able to read a first workable guide.

[tobimensch]

@oldschool001

I made a screencast that shows all the steps of installing Ubuntu 16.04 with AQEMU 0.9.2: https://vimeo.com/234963638

Never made a screencast before, so it may be rough around the edges.

[oldschool001]

Yes, that was very helpful .

A couple of points:

1. Just letting users no they can ignore the error is itself quite helpful. How to fix that, though, wasn't addressed, so it will be an ongoing nuisance for the user. Not a big deal, but a distraction from an otherwise nice utility in my opinion.
2. When you say change the graphics card to VMWare Video card, I would not say it fixes an issue. There are a lot of potential issues if the VM isn't set up correctly. I would just say it allows the user to freely set the resolution. However, it would be even nicer if it auto-updated to the correct screen size. Also, full screen mode was another adventure, one I had to hard reboot to escape.

This brings up a couple more issues with the install. There is notable lag in performance within the VM with the setup as explained. I mean when I drag the mouse around it it literally drags and skips. Typing is also delayed. I have assigned 3 gb of RAM and 4 CPU's, so in terms of resources committed there is no shortage. If I check system monitor within the VM, it stays around 25% usage of the CPUs and 50% of the RAM, 1.5gb, which seems like a lot for linux, but still there are plenty of spare resources. The lag is enough of a nuisance to keep it from being usable for me, and would make it completely unusable for a gaming platform.

So, imagine that all of this combined without guidance would be extremely difficult to impossible for the typical non IT or newbie to overcome.

However, I do appreciate your initiative and would like to see this project move forward. As I see it, this really is the only open-source VM alternative for non IT/newbies out there.

-----Original Message-----From: Tobi notifications@github.com Reply-to: tobimensch/aqemu <reply +01ea15d0dc7433fe55520bc721f168b162d891b7a8e0b68192cf0000000115dc70f292a169ce0f667d9f@reply.github.com> To: tobimensch/aqemu aqemu@noreply.github.com Cc: oldschool001 oldschool1@runbox.com, Mention mention@noreply.github.com Subject: Re: [tobimensch/aqemu] This project has been idle for too long (#45) Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2017 06:34:27 +0000 (UTC)

@oldschool001

I made a screencast that shows all the steps of installing Ubuntu 16.04 with AQEMU 0.9.2: https://vimeo.com/234963638

Never made a screencast before, so it may be rough around the edges.

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[tobimensch]

@oldschool001

What specifications does your host system have?

Go to File -> Configure -> User Interface and select "In separate windows".

Maybe this improves fullscreen handling and possibly some other issues for you.

[oldschool001]

That didn't help, maybe a little worse.

I have an old laptop with an i7 CPU 2ghz with 8 cores and 32gb of ram, hehe. It's not lacking in power. But, it lacks some of the performance improvements of the more recent chip sets.

Barry

-----Original Message-----From: Tobi notifications@github.com Reply-to: tobimensch/aqemu <reply +01ea15d0b72ef93068790392d4681a7260d55eb76772356292cf0000000115dda80f92a169ce0f667d9f@reply.github.com> To: tobimensch/aqemu aqemu@noreply.github.com Cc: oldschool001 oldschool1@runbox.com, Mention mention@noreply.github.com Subject: Re: [tobimensch/aqemu] This project has been idle for too long (#45) Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2017 04:41:51 +0000 (UTC)

@oldschool001

What specifications does your host system have?

Go to File -> Configure -> User Interface and select "In separate windows".

Maybe this improves fullscreen handling and possibly some other issues for you.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

[joergister]

you have the option to enable more than one core for a VM. This solved the Problem for me. You can do this by selecting a VM and choosing the section VM on the vertical line of tabs. (Hope it is ok for tobimensch that i'm using a screenshot out of the video he made)

BTW also enabling the hardware acceleration in the BIOS/UEFI will improve the speed of the whole thing.

@tobimensch Thanks for all your work.

[joergister]

but enabling more than one CPU seems to have its little problems....

30

[oldschool001]

Tobi,

I ended up switching to qxl to get the graphics to work better, and they do, but it sucks up a lot of cpu resources.

When you said more cores, did you mean cpu or cores? If core, any recommendation for how many sockets and how many cores per socket?

I have actually tried as many as 16 cpu's, and it is faster, but still lags a bit.

Barry

-----Original Message-----From: joergister notifications@github.com Reply-to: tobimensch/aqemu <reply +01ea15d02c97073c2056d70d14d690258fe37e79565f200092cf0000000115f643ac92a169ce0f667d9f@reply.github.com> To: tobimensch/aqemu aqemu@noreply.github.com Cc: oldschool001 oldschool1@runbox.com, Mention mention@noreply.github.com Subject: Re: [tobimensch/aqemu] This project has been idle for too long (#45) Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2017 20:40:12 +0000 (UTC)

you have the option to enable more than one core for a VM. This solved the Problem for me.

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[joergister]

@oldschool001 no sry that wasnt clear. I meant CPU

@tobimensch have you ever thought about bringing the whole project under the KDE umbrella? Cause Gnome has its GUI for managing KVM/QEMU VM's. KDE (afaik) has not. Perhaps it would get more attention that way. Also it would fit great into the DE cause it is written in Qt

[tobimensch]

@joergister Your idea is not bad. I'm not going to exclude that possibility from happening. However I'm personally not using KDE and dependencies on KDE libraries should be avoided, if possible. I'd like this project to be usable far beyond the scopes of the KDE desktop. But I'll keep it in mind.

[joergister]

@tobimensch

Is it compulsory for all apps of the KDE project to use KDE-libraries? I don't think so. Of cause, it would make sense in a way, but at least AQEMU being a Qt 5 application, fits great into the plasma desktop. IMHO it doesn't need more assimilation.

BTW: Shortly QupZilla the QtWebEngine powered Webbrowser also moved under the KDE umbrella. http://blog.qupzilla.com/2017/08/qupzilla-is-moving-under-kde-and.html?m=1 Migration is not yet fully done though.

[tobimensch]

@joergister As I said, I'll keep it in mind. Don't expect me to push in that direction any time soon.

[oldschool001]

I'm sure Tobi wouldn't mind putting some time into that, if you have some money you can put towards helping develop that!

-----Original Message-----From: joergister notifications@github.com Reply-to: tobimensch/aqemu <reply +01ea15d0572a8cd906d31d3f345d47500dd7443b5ceeba5a92cf000000011609bb7292a169ce0f667d9f@reply.github.com> To: tobimensch/aqemu aqemu@noreply.github.com Cc: oldschool001 oldschool1@runbox.com, Mention mention@noreply.github.com Subject: Re: [tobimensch/aqemu] This project has been idle for too long (#45) Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2017 15:04:19 +0000 (UTC)

@oldschool001 no sry that wasnt clear. I meant CPU

@tobimensch have you ever thought about bringing the whole project under the KDE umbrella? Cause Gnome has its GUI for managing KVM/QEMU VM's. KDE (afaik) has not. Perhaps it would get more attention that way. Also it would fit great into the DE cause it is written in Qt

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[joergister]

@tobimensch For sure I didn't want to push you in any direction!! It is no my personal wish that you make this project part of the KDE project, it was only an idea that popped up when I thought about how this project could get more attention.

But since you mentioned that you wanted to avoid the use of KDE libraries, I only wanted to point out that not every KDE project has to make use of them.

@oldschool001 I already thought about doing that. Since I'm still going to school and I'm having my final exams this year, I don't have that much money but I thought about sending him some in a way.

[tobimensch]

@joergister Thanks to your input and the input of others such as @oldschool001 I'm getting excited to start working on this project again very soon. I've many ideas floating around in my head anyways and it's fun to bring something like that to fruition.

I would enjoy working on it full time, but then I'd need to get a realistic business plan and/or enough donations to make a modest living from it.

Getting patreon.com patrons would be very nice.

Maybe I've to start a youtube channel to promote what this project can do and to increase the support base.

[FrostKnight]

I contributed 6$ to your campaign, It's all I could do at the moment. Anyways though, is it possible to transfer files from host to guest by copy and paste? If not that would be neat to have! I appreciate your work because virtualbox isn't free like it was before 4.2 and 4.0+ and also, virt-manager let me be blunt, it sucks. I cannot load any os in virt-manager, and virtualbox is unsafe. and don't get me started on vmware... xD

Anyways I wish you the best and I am glad you worked on this project for as long as you did. thank you. Though even if you made updates every 3-6 months, I would be even more grateful then I am now. ps, I use devuan without non-free and contrib hence why I dislike virtualbox.

You can actually run winblows xp with your aqemu which helps when you want to play vintage computer games from the 90's. 👍 easily I mean...

Last thing I will say is, I primarily don't use proprietary software due to security and privacy risks. in a virtual machine though, if you have it disconnected from the internet, I really don't care much. heh.

I will donate again when I can. :)

[oldschool001]

Virtualbox costs money now? Good opportunity to advertise on Youtube. I'll kick in a little.

-----Original Message-----From: FrostKnight notifications@github.com Reply-to: tobimensch/aqemu <reply +01ea15d0b9a33fcc9b373ac5972d0c110cfa6f756e25d3f892cf000000011611fd3892a169ce0f667d9f@reply.github.com> To: tobimensch/aqemu aqemu@noreply.github.com Cc: oldschool001 oldschool1@runbox.com, Mention mention@noreply.github.com Subject: Re: [tobimensch/aqemu] This project has been idle for too long (#45) Date: Wed, 01 Nov 2017 14:23:04 -0700

I contributed 6$ to your campaign, It's all I could do at the moment. Anyways though, is it possible to transfer files from host to guest by copy and paste? If not that would be neat to have! I appreciate your work because virtualbox isn't free like it was before 4.2 and 4.0+ and also, virt-manager let me be blunt, it sucks. I cannot load any os in virt-manager, and virtualbox is unsafe. and don't get me started on vmware... xD

Anyways I wish you the best and I am glad you worked on this project for as long as you did. thank you. Though even if you made updates every 3-6 months, I would be even more grateful then I am now. ps, I use devuan without non-free and contrib hence why I dislike virtualbox.

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[tobimensch]

@FrostKnight

Anyways though, is it possible to transfer files from host to guest by copy and paste?

What you can do is this:

• Media -> Folder Sharing -> Add Folder / Select a folder (on the host) that you want to share between host and guest
• Click on the folder you just created in Media -> Folder Sharing
• On the bottom you can see instructions on how to mount the host's folder inside the guest
• Start the VM, open a terminal, become root and type the line from the instructions
• Now you can easily transfer files back and forth between host and guest

Maybe I'll do a video on this.

It's a bit of a hassle especially because you have to manually mount the folder in the guest using a rather long line (although it should take only a minute or so).

But I used it frequently without issues and it's pleasant once you get the hang of it.

And many thanks for your 6$.

[oldschool001]

Tobi,

This is a much needed item for most people using virtualbox or other and wanting to transition. My opinion.

Barry

-----Original Message-----From: Tobi notifications@github.com Reply-to: tobimensch/aqemu <reply +01ea15d013d57971e51ba837888b2efe9c3ce0532f96a12692cf00000001161202a492a169ce0f667d9f@reply.github.com> To: tobimensch/aqemu aqemu@noreply.github.com Cc: oldschool001 oldschool1@runbox.com, Mention mention@noreply.github.com Subject: Re: [tobimensch/aqemu] This project has been idle for too long (#45) Date: Wed, 01 Nov 2017 21:46:12 +0000 (UTC)

    Anyways though, is it possible to transfer files from host to
    guest by copy and paste?

What you can do is this:

  * Media -> Folder Sharing -> Add Folder / Select a folder (on the
    host) that you want to share between host and guest
  * Click on the folder you just created in Media -> Folder Sharing
  * On the button you can see instructions on how to mount the
    host's folder inside the guest
  * Now you can easily transfer files back and forward between host
    and guest

Maybe I'll do a video on this.

It's a bit of a hassle especially because you have to manually mount the folder in the guest using a rather long line (although it should take only a minute or so).

But I used it frequently without issues and it's pleasant once you get the hang of it.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

[FrostKnight]

@oldschool001 no Virtualbox has this damn non-free compiler which has major security issues/privacy risks, the open watcom compiler. Libreplanet talks about it as being non-free contrib. and debian moved it to their contrib area... and trisquel/parabola/hyperbola and other completely free software gnu/linux distros, have removed it completely. Virtualbox itself is libre, until of course it loads that non-free watcom compiler which is needed to run the software unfortunately...

https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/12011

https://libreplanet.org/wiki/List_of_software_that_does_not_respect_the_Free_System_Distribution_Guidelines

virtualbox is on the list.

I don't know much about the compiler only that it is a security risk. :(

[FrostKnight]

@tobimensch Nah I thank you, for making this software decent and free software. Although if you were to ever license it again I highly recommend making it either gpl3 or gpl2 or later version. That's just me though. GPL3 prevents certain abuses that gpl2 cannot prevent... biggest example is virtualbox. But yeah, thank you indeed for making such wonderful software. Cannot thank you enough.

[tobimensch]

@FrostKnight I can't change the license with the stroke of a pen. Others also have their copyright mixed in there. But I can get in contact and theoretically do it. GPL2 only isn't too bad IMO, since it's exactly the same for the Linux kernel and that project does great.

[EchedelleLR]

@lv-zheng

I thought about this again and created a patreon account.

If you feel that my work is important to you, you can become a patron at:

https://www.patreon.com/tobimensch

If some of you sponsor me, I'll immediately begin to work on aqemu (or other free software projects) again.

You can make a difference by simply "buying me a drink":

Could you create an OpenCollective for the project? I am interested in contribution but don't want to register in a non-free service.

Would be ideal if AQemu changed focus to a little collective to allow external contributions but that is other story.

[bb010g]

@tobimensch It looks like you're no longer taking donations on Patreon?

[FrostKnight]

I cannot speak for everyone, but the last time I had interest in this project being revived, it was before my distro made some interesting changes, long story short, I lost interest for two different reasons:

My distro finds fault with dbus being required... it was a weird, and not at all needed change, it worked well before when qt4 was supported and the other needed requirements were available... bloat is not needed!

That being said, I also learned how to use qemu without a gui:

qemu-img create -f qcow2 yournewinstalled.img ?G qemu-system-x86_64 -m 4096 -cdrom yourinstalled.img -boot d youroslocation.iso --enable-kvm qemu-system-whatever-isyour-architecture --enable-kvm ~/.local/share/libvirt/yourinstalled.img -cpu kvm64,+nx -m 4096 -device AC97

This works well enough for 64 bit users in my experience, but you may need to change things, just be warned of this fact.

My distro is more Keep it simple stupid and excludes as much redhat crap as possible.

With the above all being said however:

I don't blame him one bit, he hasn't received donations for an extremely long time.

So... yeah, if you want it to continue, you are better off forking it, changing branding/name if need be, etc.

@tobimensch thank you for maintaining it as long as you did, regardless of my personal peeves with redhat, etc...

Anywho, whatever happens, enjoy your life! :)

Btw for @everyone else, those three command line options, also work for Devuan based distros as well.

I have yet to try it in Debian, but it might work there also as well even now.

As a Small EDIT: I added the info above.

Peace all!