Virtualization
A VM is the easiest way to try V without dedicated hardware.
What you need
A hypervisor and an image. The project develops against QEMU, so the guides below all use it. The ISO (or the raw image) from the download page works as-is in every host guide.
QEMU uses the accelerator your host provides. Without one it falls back to emulation, which works but is slower:
| Host | Accelerator | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Linux | KVM | What the project develops on |
| Windows | WHPX | Requires Administrator PowerShell, see the Windows guide |
| macOS | HVF | Apple’s Hypervisor framework; Intel and Apple Silicon both use it |
If virtualization isn’t enabled in the firmware, the acceleration flag fails and QEMU falls back to plain emulation. Enabling Intel VT-x / AMD-V in the BIOS is usually enough on Linux and Windows; on macOS sysctl kern.hv_support tells you whether HVF is available.
The three host guides are intentionally near-identical. Once you know the QEMU invocation on one host, the others differ in the acceleration flag and the audio driver, nothing else.
- Linux: QEMU with KVM, the fastest and most reliable route
- Windows: QEMU with WHPX, mirroring the Linux commands
- macOS: QEMU with HVF, covering Intel and Apple Silicon
There’s no need to write anything to disk to try this; the live image boots straight from the VM.