website/content/blog/virtuallivecd.md

title	date	draft	images	tags
Playing with Live CDs	2020-01-12T22:45:06-05:00	false		Virtualization

I was curious on how Lubuntu 19.10 looked but I didn't feel like rebooting my computer and loading into a new ISO. Luckily there is a nice easy way to play around with live CDs.

Here's the command

virt-install --name=Lubuntu \
  --nodisks  --livecd \
  --graphics spice \
  --vcpu=4 \
  --ram=4096 \
  --os-type=linux \
  --sound \
  --accelerate \
  --cdrom=$HOME/Downloads/lubuntu-19.10-desktop-amd64.iso

The arguments mean the following

Argument	Meaning
nodisks	No storage disks are created
livecd	Set the boot to the cdrom after installation
graphics	Sets the graphics mode
vcpu	Number of virtual CPUs
RAM	Size of RAM
os-type	Linux/Windows/etc.
sound	Attach a virtual audio device
accelerate	Make use of the KVM or KQEMU kernel acceleration capabilities if available.
cdrom	Location of ISO

Once you run this command once, the image is "installed". This means that we can easily access it in the future with the following commands

virsh start Lubuntu
virt-viewer Lubuntu