qqX - quickemu quickget X terminal project

Latest release 1.8.07

Adds new built-ins and consolidates the raft of tweaks and adjustments to handle all the new Quickemu code

MacOS is now much faster and much improved too. Both in qqX and in with Quickemu.

Lots of details in the Wiki pages ...

A Safe and Powerful Virtual Machine Manager

Full process & version controlled wrapping of both Quickemu & Quickget
Desktop Integrated. Works safely alongside other existing GUI installations

Text based interface for easy translation

Why quickemu?

Quickemu is a simply built front end for Qemu / KVM

It has an active community and is the only virtual machine manager that makes easy work of Mac and Windows.

Developers are now moving to QEMU

Quickemu is not like Qemu front-ends based on LibVirt, which can often be quite abstract and complex.

Why qqX?

qqX goes far beyond the quickemu API

A full menu system offers lots more power and functions.
The easy installation needs no additional software or dependencies.
It has improved display modes, utilities, optimizers and tools.
qqX is fully compatible with the basic stop / go of quickgui

Hybrid interface. Part text, part mouse

Less can be more.

Easy install the latest and greatest.

No need to wait for Quickget to add in the distros or releases that you want.

Start specific VM's straight from the folder

Get the latest fixes

No need to wait for official bug fixes to make their way through the system either. Any new input from the quickemu community activity can be directly accessed and put to work.

Confident Linux users should quickly find themselves at home.

Screenshots and features

Release 1.1.03 improved the main menu & added a gtk display option, while 1.5.02 now has GL toggle:

Release 1.5.02 added alphabetical zooming into list sections for the Quick Get multi distro menu:

Release 1.7.01 added a choice of 5 menu styles and of Custom Menus 🚀

And 1.7.03 added

A handy distro rename function to help with upgrades

Release 1.6.02 introduced custom boot parameters and the ability to run Arm64, Risc-V +

Whilst earlier releases have added:

Distro homepage browser and link checker
Configuration tune-up wizard
Screen percentage switching (default & individual)
Multiple snapshot management, including of shared disks.
qcow2 repair & resize
Secondary storage creation
Progress reporting on distro downloads & zsync iso's.
Process logging and diagnostics

How to Install

qqX will work happily alongside quickgui or any quickemu shortcuts. But these are not necessary.

Start from scratch. Or safely test out the qqX difference on your existing quickgui VM's

If you don't already have a standard Quickemu setup, start by installing that, complete with all its components and all its dependencies, as in the instructions on the quickemu-project pages .

You should be able to type quickemu at a command prompt and get the quickemu usage screen but from version 1.8 this is not essential.

Manual installation of Quickemu to 'PATH' as in the case of some Host distros such as Fedora may now be omitted.
Download qqX. The latest release is available here. You can also make your first download via the code/clone button. The 'dev' branch may be newer and may have the very latest tweaks and bug fixes too ...

No other software, support structures or dependencies are needed.

See the installer Wiki for more details

FAQs and Help

Lots available at the qqX wiki pages here

And the Quickemu general forum and chat is available at https://discord.gg/sNmz3uw

Release notes

Testing has been carried out on a variety of mainstream distros.

All scripts have been carefully Shellcheck linted & have full error handling routines.

qqX always makes backups, as is standard good practice with any software.

See FreeBird for details on the built-ins

See Change Log for a history synopsis

Why Bash?

Quickemu uses simple Bash scripts. Much easier for community contributions. Much easier to edit and easy to fix.

Any confident Linux user should find it relatively easy to make simple edits.

Learning Bash, or improving your knowledge of it, is always time well spent. Bash is a flexible language of which all Linux users should know at least a little.

Keep it Simple and Straight forward

qqX uses the same well-known scripting language that is used by quickemu. Anything can be easily taken, shaped and improved.

There are none of steep learning curves that are often involved with GUI's or compiled low level languages such as Rust or C.

The qqX coding style is clear and annotated sufficiently for newcomers to find their feet.

Even with newer and initially simple LibVirt front-ends, like Gnome Boxes for example, doing something basic like moving the VM folder contains a whole learning curve. Forget anything much more.