Bug 504226

Summary: qemu-kvm binary should support the '-curses' option
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Matty <matty91>
Component: kvmAssignee: Glauber Costa <gcosta>
Status: CLOSED RAWHIDE QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: low    
Version: rawhideCC: berrange, clalance, ehabkost, gcosta, markmc, quintela, virt-maint
Target Milestone: ---   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: x86_64   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: qemu-0.10.50-6.kvm86.fc12 Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2009-06-05 09:33:47 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Matty 2009-06-04 20:32:29 UTC
Description of problem:

The qemu-kvm option doesn't currently support the '-curses' flag:

[root@disarm ~]# uname -a
Linux disarm 2.6.27.5-117.fc10.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Nov 18 11:58:53 EST 2008 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[root@disarm ~]# qemu-kvm -help | grep curses

[root@disarm ~]# qemu-kvm -curses
qemu-kvm: invalid option -- '-curses'

But the manual page shipped with fedora 10 lists this as a valid option:

      -curses
           Normally, QEMU uses SDL to display the VGA output.  With this option, QEMU can
           display the VGA output when in text mode using a curses/ncurses interface.
           Nothing is displayed in graphical mode.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

Fedora 10 with the latest KVM and Qemu packages:

[root@disarm ~]# rpm -q -a | egrep '(kvm|qemu)'
qemu-img-0.9.1-10.fc10.x86_64
kvm-74-11.fc10.x86_64
etherboot-roms-kvm-5.4.4-5.fc10.x86_64


How reproducible:

Listed above.

Steps to Reproduce:
1.  Steps are listed above.
  
Actual results:

BIOS screens and early interaction is currently unavailable from the console (you can still get to this it you enable vnc though).

Expected results:

The early boot screens should be displayed.

Additional info:

None.

Comment 1 Daniel Berrangé 2009-06-04 21:51:38 UTC
This is already certainly due to the RPM missing a BuildRequires dependency on ncurses-devel. The configure script probes for curses.h and curses_version(), and automatically disables curses support if missing.

Comment 2 Mark McLoughlin 2009-06-05 09:33:47 UTC
Thanks, fixed in rawhide now with qemu-0.10.50-6.kvm86.fc12:

* Fri Jun  5 2009 Mark McLoughlin <markmc> - 2:0.10.50-6.kvm86
- Fix 'kernel requires an x86-64 CPU' error
- BuildRequires ncurses-devel to enable '-curses' option (#504226)