Want to run virtual machines on Linux Mint? QEMU with KVM and virt-manager is a great alternative to VirtualBox.

1. Update your system

Open a terminal and run:

sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade

2. Install QEMU, KVM, and virt-manager

Run:

sudo apt install qemu-system-x86 qemu-utils libvirt-daemon-system libvirt-clients virt-manager

This installs:

• QEMU: Emulates virtual hardware and runs virtual machines.
• KVM: Provides hardware-assisted virtualization on supported Linux systems.
• libvirt: Manages virtual machines and their resources.
• virt-manager: A graphical interface for creating and managing virtual machines.

3. Enable libvirt

Enable and start the libvirt service:

sudo systemctl enable --now libvirtd

Add your user to the relevant groups:

sudo usermod -aG libvirt,kvm "$USER"

Log out and log back in so the group changes take effect.

4. Check virtualization support

Check whether your CPU exposes virtualization support:

lscpu | grep Virtualization

You can also check whether KVM is available:

ls -l /dev/kvm

If "/dev/kvm" is missing, check whether Intel VT-x or AMD-V is enabled in your firmware settings and whether your system supports KVM.

5. Launch virt-manager

Open the application menu and search for Virtual Machine Manager, or run:

virt-manager

Choose the local QEMU/KVM connection, then click Create a new virtual machine.

Select an installation ISO, choose your memory and CPU allocation, create a virtual disk, and start the virtual machine.

What about VirtualBox?

VirtualBox can run on Linux Mint, but certain versions may have dependency issues or fail to build their kernel modules after a kernel update. The version in Mint's repositories may not always be compatible with the kernel you're running.

QEMU/KVM with virt-manager is a good alternative, and it integrates naturally with Linux's virtualization stack.

Happy virtualizing!

In Linux why have tools that might differ from a distro to a distro

So today I will talk about those tools

1. ls

ls refers to list directory it useful for seeing your files through the terminal or the tty

Fun fact: Omarchy uses a custom ls

2. cd

Its made to go from a directory to another like ~/ $ cd Downloads takes you to the downloads folder but Downloads/ $ cd ../ takes you to the directory before you

Fun fact: ./ means current directory

3. Bash (or sh or zsh or fish)

That's the default shell in most distros It makes you able to use the tools and apps but some Arch users like to use zsh or fish while sh is more older

Fun fact: most initramfs uses ash

4. grep

Its helpful when you want to see something from a file but you don't need to read the whole file like ~/ $ cat test | grep something

Fun fact | means give output to next command

5. cat

cat looks at files and gives you the output so ~/ $ cat test shows you what is inside the file

Fun fact: typing cat /dev/urandom will fill your terminal with binary so never try cat /dev/urandom

But actually the userspace tools differs in most distros they use GNU tools while alpine uses busybox or some Linux from scratch systems may use sbase or you could code your tools

I hope you learned something new

Here I'm gonna tell you how Linux works From the beginning to the end Step 1: The bootloader Your Firmware opens an app called bootloader (usually in Linux it's grub) then the bootloader uses its config to load the kernel Step 2: the kernel After the kernel is loaded it knows where is your root partition it mounts it as / then runs /sbin/init in most distros /sbin/init is systemd Step 3: the init After the kernel runs the init the init starts the services and listens to shutdown or reboot signals (killing the init makes the kernel panick)

So I made a community called c/learninglinux I wanted to name it learningLinuxtogether but the server didn't accept so anyways this community will be where experts send guides or help beginners and where Beginners ask for help so lemme know your opinion in the comments Edit: I'm sorry for problems in my English it's not my native language