The new major update of the open-source QEMU 9.0 machine emulator and virtualization software has been released. This update introduces several new features and upgrades specifically tailored for emulation in ARM, RISC-V, LoongArch, s390x, and HPPA.
Among the key additions in QEMU 9.0 is the multi-queue support for the virtio-blk block driver, allowing individual disk queues to be handled by separate I/O threads, the possibility of multitasking memory backends’ preallocation in specific instances, and the implementation of the “mapped-ram” function for more efficient virtual machine snapshots, checkpoint-restart facility for VFIO, as well as improved zero-page detection abilities.
The RISC-V now has the added ISA/extension support features for Zacas, amocas, RVA22 profiles, Zaamo, Zalrsc, Ztso, and others in QEMU 9.0. It also includes SMBIOS support for RISC-V virt machine, SRAT, SLIT, AIA, PLIC ACPI support, and the latest RHCT table support.
The ARM upgrades include B-L475E-IOT01A IoT node, mp3-an536 (MPS3 dev board + AN536 firmware), and raspi4b (Raspberry Pi 4 Model B) board support. The developers have noted that the current version of QEMU does not model PCI or Ethernet for Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, but these will be included in a later release. However, Raspberry Pi boards now have SPI and BSC i2c controllers supported.
ARM support also gained additional IO/disk/USB/SPI/ethernet controller and timer support for Freescale i.MX6, Allwinner R40, Banana Pi, npcm7xxx, and virt boards, as well as architectural feature support for ECV (Enhanced Counter Virtualization), NV (Nested Virtualization), and NV2 (Enhanced Nested Virtualization).
On top of that, QEMU 9.0 introduces KVM acceleration support for the LoongArch architecture, including LSX/LASX vector extensions, updates the SeaBIOS-hppa firmware to version 16 for HPPA architecture, and adds emulation support for CVDG, CVB, CVBY and CVBG instructions, and improves LAE (Load Address Extended) emulation for the s390x architecture.
There are also various gdbstub improvements like catching of syscalls in user-mode, support for fork-follow modes, and support for siginfo:read. For more details, check out the full list of changes on the official website, from where you can also download QEMU 9.0 if you fancy compiling it from sources.
Last updated 21 hours ago