qemu-setup.md

QEMU Setup Guide

Follow these steps to run the linux-inference-memory-hints benchmarks in a reproducible, patched environment.

Step 1: Install Host Dependencies

On your host Linux machine:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y build-essential libncurses-dev bison flex libssl-dev libelf-dev bc wget qemu-system-x86_64 debootstrap

Step 2: Build the Patched Kernel

Run the automated build script. This will download 6.6.20, apply the research patches, and build the image.

chmod +x scripts/*.sh
./scripts/build_kernel.sh

Step 3: Create the Root Filesystem

This project requires a minimal Linux environment to run benchmarks. The automated script uses debootstrap to build a Debian-based image.

# This requires root privileges
sudo ./scripts/create_rootfs.sh

Step 4: Boot QEMU

Launch the VM. This script mounts the repo as /mnt/repo inside the guest.

./scripts/run_qemu.sh

Step 5: Run Experiments (Inside VM)

Once you have a shell inside the VM:

# Inside Guest
/mnt/repo/scripts/run_in_vm.sh

Step 6: Analyze Results

Exit the VM (Ctrl-A then X). The results will be in the results/ directory of your host repository.

Check docs/qemu-troubleshooting.md if you encounter issues.