Re: [Qemu-devel] VMware Player

[Joe Lee <joelee724@gmail.com>]

Rick Vernam wrote:
> QEMU leaves me with very few 'itches to be scratched' ...
>
> The basic tasks that a QUI should confine itself to, IMO, are already pretty 
> darn easy - define/manage a VM (via a shell script for me), start it, stop 
> it, pause it...etc..
>
> Even so, I've been thinking about this for some time - months probably...
> What I'd develop, if I were to undertake such a task, is a very simple app 
> that can start qemu according to some configuration, and simply hook into the 
> monitor to issue such commands as sendkey, stop, cont ...etc ...
>
> I do not imagine a need to have this app embed the qemu VM in itself, only 
> start it & hook into the monitor.  Besides, I don't want to loose precious 
> real estate - I like the window that a running VM is in just how it is - no 
> changes.
> I've used VMWare in the past a lot.  I found the toolbars & menus to be 
> nothing more than clutter & annoyance.  The majority of the work I do with a 
> VM has everything to do with the VM, and nothing to do with things that can 
> be done with an additional GUI, however it would be nice to have one for 
> simplifying those extra tasks...
>
> Specifically, I imagine something sitting in my Sys. Tray.  This Sys. Tray 
> icon menu thing would have options to invoke qemu's monitor commands for easy 
> access ...or a list of all VMs, each with a sub-menu (I'm thinking stop, 
> cont, loadvm, savevm, commit, usb stuff, change device x).
> Also, I can use the Sys. Tray Icon to bring up it's window with all the 
> niceties to create a new VM, manage existing VMs...etc.
>
> Right now, I have a shell script that has the 'configuration' of my VM - 
> changing of that 'configuration' would need to go in the GUI.
>
> I also use the monitor thing for stop, cont, loadvm, startvm, commit, usb 
> stuff & change device x - that would need to go in the GUI.
>
> Beyond that, what does more bling really bring to the table?
>
> On Thursday 15 June 2006 16:03, Joe Lee wrote:
>   
>> Johannes Schindelin wrote:
>>     
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> On Thu, 15 Jun 2006, Joe Lee wrote:
>>>       
>>>> BTW, I am curious to know how much would it cost to develop a good
>>>> GUI-Frontend for QEMU that would be comparable to VMware. How much man
>>>> hours would this likely take?
>>>>         
>>> I do not know VMware. Anybody? I would be interested, too, to know how
>>> complicated that frontend is... Should not be too difficult to reproduce
>>> it in Tcl/Tk (with a proper Tcl script as config format).
>>>
>>> Ciao,
>>> Dscho
>>>       
>> I am hoping some experience developers would comment on this!
>> Joe
>>
>>
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>>     
>
>   
I glad to see many people sharing comments and making suggestions since 
this thread topic started. I seems there enough interest to have a 
GUI-Frontend for QEMU. I am hopeful this can lead to getting something 
started.

I'd like to see a poll from people who would be willing to participate 
and contribute to getting something started.

-joe