Run Windows system under Linux with native Linux virtualization

Question

I'm following this excellent article to run Windows system under my Debian Linux with the native Linux virtualization, aka KVM.

However, it might be dated as having done

sudo apt update
sudo apt install qemu-kvm bridge-utils virt-manager libosinfo-bin -y

and rebooted, I'm still having many problems.

First, I'm blocked on the first step:

The libvirtd service does not appear to be installed. 

If in the virtual machine manager window I click on create a new virtual machine, I'll get:

I was thinking,

It is unlikely that the Debian package dependency is messed up, or the needed service not started by mistake. So what I'm missing here?

Then found the answer from https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/609256/374303

sudo apt install libvirt-daemon-system resolved the libvirtd.service issue

However, this is what I'm getting despite I've rebooted my machine:

As per the article,

You may now go ahead and reboot the host, if you don't reboot the machine then you will end getting a below error.

I.e., I've done everything I should.

UPDATE:

Thanks to A.B's following answer -- add to the "libvirt" group is sufficient.

If you want to manage VMs as non-root you need to add a user to that group.

Then I moved on, to configure the virtual hard disk. By default Ubuntu KVM would pick up 40GB, but since I'm creating a Win10 Dev machine. I need to make it 120G. And I got into this:

Which I found the solution here

However, I want to choose where to store the virtual hard disk, which gave me the trouble:

Which I found the solution here

Then I moved on, all the way to clicking on Begin installation, which gave me this:

whose solution is supposed to be sudo virsh net-start default, but I'm getting:

$ sudo virsh net-start default
error: Failed to start network default
error: Cannot check dnsmasq binary /usr/sbin/dnsmasq: No such file or directory

And none of the hits I found were able to solve the problem yet, including,

• https://wiki.libvirt.org/page/Virtual_network_%22default%22_has_not_been_started
• https://forum.manjaro.org/t/unable-to-complete-install-requested-operation-is-not-valid-network-default-is-not-active/84331/2
• https://www.xmodulo.com/network-default-is-not-active.html

but finally found the solution at https://blog.programster.org/kvm-missing-default-network:

sudo apt install dnsmasq -y

Yet, now clicking on Begin installation, gave me this:

Error connecting to graphical console: Error opening Spice console SpiceClientGtk missing

And the solution here says to "changed Display settings from Spice Server to VNC server" and "it worked"

How to make the whole thing work?

This question being asked in a narrative way is deliberate, in hoping that the next person following that article will solve the encountered questions one by one.

Can we have a step by step instruction to get it working without missing steps or hiccups please?

Answer 1

Answering the question myself, not because I'm anywhere near the level of expert, but in fact I have zero knowledge about the whole thing.

Answering the question myself just because I want to bring some closure to this lo~~~ong story; and also for the following:

This question being asked in a narrative way is deliberate, in hoping that the next person following that article will solve the encountered questions one by one.

Now, first of all, why I didn't install the VNC server, going against the two recommendations in OP: because I want to go forward, not backward, as I don't like VNC very much. So,

What is Spice?

The Spice project aims to provide a complete open source solution for interaction with virtualized desktop devices. Spice currently focuses to provide high-quality remote access to QEMU virtual machines. Seeking to help break down the barriers to virtualization adoption by overcoming traditional desktop virtualization challenges and emphasizing the user experience. For this purpose, Red Hat introduced the SPICE remote computing protocol that is used for Spice client-server communication. Other components developed include QXL display device and driver, etc.

So, Spice is an enhanced method to connect to a QEMU virtual machine in a way that helps to maintain the desktop experience. It provides sound from the VM as well as much lower bandwidth for higher end graphics on the VM.

With that, I have every reason to use Spice Server instead of the old and insecure VNC server.

And the solution to my last mile is simple:

sudo apt install -y gir1.2-spiceclientgtk-3.0

If you have bumped into any other problems while trying to make the whole thing work, I'd appreciate that you share your experience and solution below, so as to help the next guy from fall into the trap. Thanks.