virt-manager

• https://nowsci.com/winapps/kvm/
• https://documentation.ubuntu.com/server/how-to/virtualisation/libvirt/
• https://documentation.ubuntu.com/server/how-to/virtualisation/virtual-machine-manager/
• https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Libvirt
• https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Virt-manager

Windows:

• https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO
• https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11

There seems to be two pages that one can refer to for Ubuntu-specific instructions, the documentation and the community wiki.

Seems like would be good to enable Intel VT-d from BIOS, if available. If KVM cannot be enabled, virtualization will just bit slower. Initial installation steps are simply:

user:~$ sudo apt install qemu-kvm libvirt-daemon-system
 
# This indicates that hardware-virtualization support is currently *enabled*,
# not just the fact that it is supported - misleading message!
user:~$ kvm-ok
INFO: /dev/kvm exists
KVM acceleration can be used
 
# KVM device
user:~$ ls -l /dev/kvm
crw-rw----+ 1 root kvm 10, 232 Jan 26 22:52 /dev/kvm
 
# libvirt sockets
user:~$ sudo lsof | grep "libvirt-sock"
systemd  1  root  263u  unix 0xffffa0550be3cc00  0t0  7924 /run/libvirt/libvirt-sock type=STREAM (LISTEN)
systemd  1  root  264u  unix 0xffffa0550979c800  0t0  8805 /run/libvirt/libvirt-sock-ro type=STREAM (LISTEN)
 
# libvirt service + sockets
user:~$ sudo systemctl status libvirt
user:~$ sudo systemctl status libvirt.socket

Note that the user needs to be part of the libvirt group (TODO: why?) and the kvm group to communicate with the KVM device (logout if necessary, as usual). This installation step gives us the base virsh to spin up VMs from the command line. Some extra steps to ensure