Download QEMU

Linux

QEMU is packaged by most Linux distributions:

  • Arch: pacman -S qemu

  • Debian/Ubuntu: apt-get install qemu

  • Fedora: dnf install @virtualization

  • Gentoo: emerge --ask app-emulation/qemu

  • RHEL/CentOS: yum install qemu-kvm

  • SUSE: zypper install qemu

macOS

QEMU can be installed from Homebrew:

brew install qemu

QEMU can be installed from MacPorts:

sudo port install qemu

QEMU requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later, but it is recommended to use Mac OS X 10.7 or later.

Windows

Stefan Weil provides binaries and installers for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows.

Source code

Grab the source code for the latest releases and compile it yourself! Detailed compilation instructions can be found in the wiki for Linux, Win32 and macOS.

Full list of releases

or stay on the bleeding edge with the git repository!

Build instructions

To download and build QEMU 5.1.0:

wget https://download.qemu.org/qemu-5.1.0.tar.xz
tar xvJf qemu-5.1.0.tar.xz
cd qemu-5.1.0
./configure
make

To download and build QEMU from git:

git clone https://git.qemu.org/git/qemu.git
cd qemu
git submodule init
git submodule update --recursive
./configure
make

The latest development happens on the master branch. The stable trees are located in branches named stable-X.YY branch, where X.YY is the release version.

Version numbering

Since version 3.0.0, QEMU uses a time based version numbering scheme:

major
incremented by 1 for the first release of the year
minor
reset to 0 with every major increment, otherwise incremented by 1 for each release from git master
micro
always 0 for releases from git master, incremented by 1 for each stable branch release

The implication of this is that changes in major version number do not have any bearing on the scope of changes included in the release. Non-backward compatible changes may be made in any master branch release, provided they have followed the deprecation policy which calls for warnings to be emitted for a minimum of two releases prior to the change.