Quickemu 4.9.9 Release Notes

Cross Architecture Support

Full ARM64 (aarch64) guest support - quickemu now supports running ARM64 virtual machines on both x86_64 and ARM64 hosts. The host architecture is automatically detected, and you can override it with the --arch flag when downloading OS images.

• Architecture-aware filenames and output for downloaded images
• Per-distro architecture validation - quickget only lists architectures each OS actually supports
• --check-all-arch flag to test both amd64 and arm64 downloads for a given OS
• Correct architecture selection for Fedora and Ubuntu Server ISOs
• ARM64 support for Debian with proper edition validation

Performance Improvements

Significant disk I/O and emulation performance enhancements:

• Improved qcow2 disk performance - enables TRIM/discard and detect-zeroes, reducing disk space usage and improving SSD longevity
• TCG translation cache tuning - larger cache with multithreaded TCG for faster emulation when KVM is unavailable
• Better disk I/O defaults - optimised cache and async I/O settings for improved throughput

SPICE Improvements

Enhanced SPICE display support, particularly beneficial for Windows guests:

• SPICE display reconnection - reconnect to running VM displays without restarting
• Local SPICE over Unix sockets - more secure, lower-latency connections when using VirGL
• These changes improve the remote desktop experience for Windows and Linux guests

Display & Graphics

• GTK display backend preferred with automatic fallback to SDL if GTK is unavailable
• Simplified display device selection - removed redundant -vga none configuration
• OpenGL improvements - GL now disabled automatically when display backend is none, enabled on macOS (cocoa) with virtio GL preference

macOS Guest Improvements

• Better display support - uses vmware-svga for improved macOS graphics compatibility
• TSC and timing fixes - proper TSC flag detection for AMD CPUs, vmware TSC enabled, unstable TSC warnings for macOS Ventura+ on AMD
• Sound card compatibility - selects correct sound card for macOS guests, prevents default sound card overriding compatible selection
• Serial port disabled by default for macOS and Windows
• OpenCore and OVMF downloads pinned to last-known-good commit for stability
• ACPI PCI hotplug disabled for macOS to prevent issues

New OS Support

• Azure Linux 3.0 - Microsoft's container-optimised Linux distribution now available
• Ubuntu Desktop ARM64 - support for Ubuntu 25.10+ ARM64 desktop images

Distro Fixes

Maintained up-to-date download support across the OS catalog:

• Zorin OS - updated download method and available editions
• Rocky Linux - restored dynamic release discovery, fixed 10.0 DVD ISO naming
• Parrot Security - updated releases and editions
• Garuda Linux - updated available editions
• MX Linux - fixed Xfce ISO naming
• Gentoo, Linux Mint, LMDE - switched to mirrors.kernel.org for reliability
• Artix Linux - fixed edition parsing
• Solus - handled Xfce beta naming for older releases
• PCLinuxOS - dynamic edition release discovery
• Guix - updated to 1.5.0 and 1.4.0
• Debian - only list archive versions with live images available
• Removed discontinued distros - Athena OS (no longer updated), VX Linux (website down), KDE Neon developer edition

Infrastructure

• QEMU 6.1.0 minimum version now required
• Updated Nix flakes to nixos-unstable
• GitHub Actions artifact handling improvements
• Enhanced test-quickget CI with better sorting and summary formatting
• ShellCheck compliance improvements throughout
• macOS devshell improvements - removed brew dependencies, enabled EFI boot with patched OVMF paths

What's Changed

• fix(quickemu): conditionalise KVM-specific CPU flags for Windows by @flexiondotorg in https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/pull/1805
• fix(quickget): add hash verification for Archcraft, KolibriOS, Mabox by @flexiondotorg in https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/pull/1806
• fix(quickget): resize Batocera image for GPT expansion by @flexiondotorg in https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/pull/1807
• fix(quickemu): improve TSC flag detection for macOS on AMD CPUs by @flexiondotorg in https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/pull/1808
• fix(devshell): enable EFI boot on macOS by patching OVMF paths by @flexiondotorg in https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/pull/1809
• fix(quickemu): skip x86 CPU feature checks on Apple Silicon by @flexiondotorg in https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/pull/1810
• feat(quickget): integrate OpenCore into macOS disk image by default by @flexiondotorg in https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/pull/1811
• feat(quickemu): enable GL on macOS (cocoa) and prefer virtio GL by @flexiondotorg in https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/pull/1812
• fix(quickemu): accept HygonGenuine CPUs and skip x86 checks on ARM hosts by @flexiondotorg in https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/pull/1813
• fix(quickget): support algorithm-prefixed hashes and b2sum by @flexiondotorg in https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/pull/1814
• feat(quickemu): warn on unstable TSC for macOS Ventura+ on AMD by @flexiondotorg in https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/pull/1815
• feat(quickemu): add ARM64 (aarch64) guest support by @flexiondotorg in https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/pull/1290
• feat(quickemu): add CPU flag management with deduplication by @flexiondotorg in https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/pull/1816
• fix(quickemu): enable pflash secure property only when secureboot on by @flexiondotorg in https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/pull/1817
• fix(quickemu): set xres/yres only for devices that support them by @flexiondotorg in https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/pull/1818
• feat(quickemu): derive SHARE_PATH from QEMU binary by @flexiondotorg in https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/pull/1819
• feat(quickget): add ARM64 (aarch64) download support by @flexiondotorg in https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/pull/1820
• refactor: quote expansions and add ShellCheck directive by @flexiondotorg in https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/pull/1821
• docs(quickemu): clarify CPU, display and VM comments by @flexiondotorg in https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/pull/1822
• build(packaging): sync Nix flakes, devshell and Debian packaging by @flexiondotorg in https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/pull/1823

Full Changelog: https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/compare/4.9.8...4.9.9