QEMU possible on Armbian?

[Bas]

Hello folks, I happily run Armbian Jammy XFCE on my much beloved Meko box (with at least SOME hardware accel) and Bookworm on Orange Pi 5. Both run excellent, but Jammy/xfce is a bit more snappy. probably because of partly harware accell. On the Meko R3588 4Gb box I installed Docker, Portainer, MQTT server container, Home Assistant container. All is well. I operate my boxes via RealVNC, so that it also will work seemlessly when VPN is active. The containers are so extremely light that they hardly take a few percent CPU. Home Assistant container takes 0,5Gig or so, MQTT server takes 0.1Gig. My first encounter with docker is very positive! Next I will try to add open VPN and SABNZB containers if possible.

 

So...these containers got me thinking...can we run QEMU on Armbian? Probably not,  but I have to ask: would it be possible to:

 

• have QEMU working on RK3588 Armbian
• Run for example a windows VM in QEMU? Even if it would be slow? 

 

Just playing and experimenting...never used XFCE before, it grows on me, very snappy and no-nonsense...! And with dark themes these UI's look a lot cooler in the first place IMO.

 

PS: I don't get that my plastic Meko box doesn't get hot, without ANY active cooling. I did a stresstest for 4 minutes, all 8 cores maxed, and sensor temps reach eventually over 80 degrees. Where does the heat go? The box never gets really hot and when the stresstest ends sensor temps go straight back to 60/50s almost instantly. I quite LIKE it's completely silent and without moving parts. It's got an EXCELLENT built-in wifi adapter too! So good that I don't even bother to plug the ethernet cable in, that says it all. Maybe I'll start loving my 8Gig Opi5 more when I get a passively cooled aluminium case for it. But currently it has moving parts and NO built-in wifi and an ugly transparent case 😉 

 

Bas

 

 

 

[royk]

I've no idea if qemu works, never tried it, but if you want to run a Windows app smooth you'll have a better chance with box64 and wine. Beside that you could literally install Windows for Arm on it although not everything works: 

https://worproject.com/guides/how-to-install/on-rockchip

 

The RK3588 is thermal throttled at 80 degrees, so it will run slower. An aluminium heat sink will extend the time before it reaches 80 degrees but eventually it'll still thermal throttle, at least the ones I've tested. Replacing the thermal pads for high performance ones can make big difference, just check the temp of the heat sink to see if you'll need it. Depending on your use case adding a (quiet) PWM fan might be a better solution.