I use Fedora Linux and need Visual Studio 2010 and 2026 for college ASP.NET work. Visual Studio is not available for Linux, but I do not want to dual-boot, replace Linux with Windows, or rely on Windows as my main system. I have used GNOME Boxes and VirtualBox before, but I have no experience configuring QEMU/KVM. VirtualBox also made my system lag when I allocated resources to a virtual machine.
I would like to learn the proper setup process instead of blindly copying commands. What should I install and configure on Fedora to create a Windows virtual machine with QEMU/KVM? Are there reliable tutorials or guides that explain how it works, including resource allocation and installing Windows from an ISO?
2 Answers
GNOME Boxes already uses QEMU and KVM behind the scenes, so you do not have to switch to a completely different virtualization technology. It provides a simpler interface for creating a Windows VM from an ISO. If you want more control over CPU, memory, storage, networking, and device settings, virt-manager is another common graphical frontend for the same stack.
On Fedora, the virtualization package group installs the main tools and services. You can start with:
sudo dnf install @virtualization
sudo systemctl enable --now libvirtd
After that, use GNOME Boxes or virt-manager to create the VM, select your Windows ISO, and assign resources. The commands alone are not the whole setup: you will still need to confirm that hardware virtualization is enabled in the firmware, create virtual storage, choose an appropriate amount of RAM and CPU, and install Windows inside the VM. Avoid assigning all of your host's resources, since Fedora still needs enough memory and CPU to remain responsive.
So those commands install the virtualization packages and start the service, but the VM itself still has to be configured through a frontend. I will look into the firmware virtualization setting and the resource options rather than treating the commands as the complete setup.
I did not realize GNOME Boxes supported Windows guests. I will check whether it can create a VM from a Windows ISO. I mainly need Visual Studio for ASP.NET development, so a straightforward setup may be enough.