Compiling qemu on ubuntu 12.04

I hit a seemingly common issue running configure

ERROR: glib-2.12 required to compile QEMU

I tried the usual suspects -

~/qemu-1.7.0$ sudo apt-get install libglib2.0-dev
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree    
Reading state information... Done
libglib2.0-dev is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 72 not upgraded.

to no avail...
After poking through the configure script, I suspected a pkg-config issue.
The export below resolved my issue -

export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/pkgconfig

Headless install of Fedora 19

I need to do a headless install of fedora at work, and want to test the process at home first.
Approach is, use kvm/qemu on my ubuntu machine, and install fedora as a guest

virt-install \

 --name=guest1-fedora19-64 \

 --disk /var/lib/libvirt/images/guest1-fedora19-64.img,size=10 \

 --graphics none \

 --vcpus=1 --ram=2048 \

 --location=/home/steve/Downloads/Fedora-19-x86_64-DVD.iso \

 --network bridge=virbr0 \

 --os-type=linux \

 --os-variant=fedora16 \

 --extra-args="console=ttyS0,115200"

This works well, and anaconda gives me the choice of vnc or text based install

Trying text first -

Worked very smoothly.
After install, added tigervncserver, configured for lxde, disabled firewall, and was able to connect with vncviewer.


Reconnect after restart -

root@steve-GA-880GMA-UD2H:~# virsh list --inactive Id Name State ---------------------------------- - guest1-fedora19-64 shut off root@steve-GA-880GMA-UD2H:~# virsh start guest1-fedora19-64 Domain guest1-fedora19-64 started

root@steve-GA-880GMA-UD2H:~# virsh console guest1-fedora19-64

Connected to domain guest1-fedora19-64 Escape character is ^] [ 0.535212] 00:04: ttyS Fedora release 19 (Schrödinger’s Cat) Kernel 3.9.5-301.fc19.x86_64 on an x86_64 (ttyS0) localhost login:

Then vnc via anaconda

Network was configured automatically

vnc worked fine

and vnc via qemu/kvm

apt-get install virt-viewer

virt-install \

 --name=guest2-fedora19-64 \

 --disk /var/lib/libvirt/images/guest2-fedora19-64.img,size=10 \

 --graphics vnc \

 --vcpus=1 --ram=2048 \

 --location=/home/steve/Downloads/Fedora-19-x86_64-DVD.iso \

 --network bridge=virbr0 \

 --os-type=linux \

 --os-variant=fedora16

Also went smoothly.

UEFI & GPT

The real hardware had some UEFI support, and this led to some extra issues. Enough for another post, later...

Migrating to grub2

Well, this was also relatively painless. Following the instructions from the FedUp page -

grub2-install /dev/sda
grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

Got me a working grub2 system - however, my poor man's install option was lost.
This I corrected as below, adding it's entry in the file below

[steve@aspireone753 ~]$ sudo cat /etc/grub.d/40_custom
#!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries.  Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment.  Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.

menuentry Fedora-17-x86_64-Live-Desktop {
  set root=(hd0,msdos8)
  linux /isolinux/vmlinuz0 root=UUID=B381-1423 rootfstype=auto rw liveimg quiet  rhgb
  initrd /isolinux/initrd0.img
}

and then re-running 

sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

There were some syntax changes from how it was in grub.conf ->

title Fedora-17-x86_64-Live-Desktop.is

  root (hd0,7)

  kernel /isolinux/vmlinuz0 root=UUID=B381-1423 rootfstype=auto rw liveimg quiet  rhgb

  initrd /isolinux/initrd0.img

Note especially the change in partition numbering.

Upgrade Fedora 17 to 19 using FedUp

Whilst a fairly time consuming process, it went very smoothly. The only minor issue I encountered was Chrome not working, but this and a simple solution was documented on the FedUp page.

Dare I tackle a grub update?

Also worth noting... my issue with

rfkill: WLAN soft blocked

occurring randomly some minutes after boot, although not solved... I seem to have found a remedy.

After installing the rfkill util, I'm able to re-enable via the command

rfkill unblock WLAN