[Qemu-discuss] qemu - kvm - Line 6 HD300

[Johan & Katrien Dewaele²]

Hi,

I'm confused !

I'm trying to get Line 6 Edit HD 300 software for a Line 6 
multi-effect-board for guitar to run on a virtual machine on my Debian 
testing - kernel 3.4.6 box.

1° I tried virtualbox version 4.1.18-78361~Debian~wheezy with windows XP 
as guest:
The program runs, I can adjust all parameters/knobs but have a problem 
synchronising data (pre-sets) between the software and the Line6 
hardware: pre-sets are not loaded from the effect-board, adjustments 
made on the HD 300 edit software can not be saved to the device (hardware).
So communication between soft and hardware is not optimal.

2° So I was suggested to try kvm-qemu as this software is being 
developed more actively

Hence my confusion: Can somebody tell me what the difference is between 
: qemu and qemu-kvm ?

I have following versions installed:
qemu                                          1.1.0+dfsg-1               
fast processor emulator
qemu-kvm                                  1.1.0+dfsg-3               
Full virtualization on x86 hardware

I start the guest OS as follows: (don't mind the difference in shared 
samba-folder, and the extra parameters for having a network interface in 
qemu)

$kvm -smb /home/dewaele/bin/shared -m 512 -smp 4  -localtime -device 
piix4-usb-uhci -usb -usbdevice host:0e41:5057 /mnt/Windisk/QEMU/qemu_XP3

$qemu -netdev user,id=usernet -device rtl8139,netdev=usernet -smb 
/mnt/MijnDocsDisk -m 512 -smp 4 -localtime -device piix4-usb-uhci -usb 
-usbdevice host:0e41:5057 -machine accel=kvm,kernel_irqchip=on 
-option-rom /usr/share/seabios/optionrom/kvmvapic.bin 
/mnt/Windisk/QEMU/qemu_XP3

For both I use kvm acceleration-virtualisation (I notice an important 
performance increase when adding the machine accel parameter in qemu), 
but I do not see any difference in the way the Line 6 program or Windows 
XP behaves.   I am  using the same windows XP image.
But hey, both programs seem to be allready better than virtualbox !!!!  
synchronisation is somewhat better but still not good enough.

As with both qemu and kvm-qemu the Line6 software is not really behaving 
as it should, I would like to choose what the best solution is, and will 
be ....

3° I tried googling the matter: most people seem also confused.... ;-) : 
has kvm been merged with qemu or will this happen in the future? Or is 
kvm a step ahead of qemu?  Is there still  a difference in code?  Is 
qemu only hardware emulation and not real virtualisation as kvm should 
be (what is the difference)?

4° also if anybody has more look to have this software communicate 
better with the Line 6 hardware and would like to share: I would 
appreciate any help or advice or suggestions.  Hey, I'm open to 
everything ! :-)

Best regards and thanks in advance,
Johan