Qemu has presented the release of the project Qemu 9.2. As an emulator, Qemu allows users to launch a program built for one hardware platform on a system with a different architecture, such as executing an ARM program on an X86-compatible PC. In virtualization mode, Qemu provides performance close to the hardware system by directly executing instructions on the CPU and utilizing hypervisors like XEN, KVM in Linux, or NVMM in NetBSD.
Originally created by Fabrice Bellard, the project aimed to enable running X86 executable Linux files on non-X86 architectures. Throughout its development, Qemu has added support for full emulation of 14 hardware architectures and over 400 emulated hardware devices. The latest version, 9.2, incorporates over 1,700 changes from 209 developers.
Some key improvements introduced in Qemu 9.2 include:
- Experimental support for creating devices written in Rust language. By default, Rust support in Qemu is disabled and can be activated during assembly using the “–enable-Rust” option. Assembly with Rust requires RustC 1.63.0 and Bindgen 0.60.0. Plans include adding Rust compiler and bindgen to mandatory assembly dependencies.
- Added support in the virtio-gpu device for 3D graphics utilizing the Vulkan API through the Venus Mesa Vulkan Driver. This allows the guest system to render 3D graphics without direct access to the physical GPU. Dependencies include the library virglrender on the host system and the Mesa driver venus.