Arch Linux

irrlicht

Member

Registered: 2010-12-06

Posts: 107

qemu-kvm Could not initialize SDL(No available video device) - exiting

Hi guys,

i got a problem with qemu. Since yesterday it just wont work - giving me this: Could not initialize SDL(No available video device) - exiting
However it starts in "-curses" and "-nographic" mode, but that i need is "vga -sld" mode.
Modules intel_kvm and kvm are running. I also use latest nvidia driver from repo.
I did not change anything on that machine.

My setup:

 Linux mistique 2.6.36-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Dec 10 20:32:37 CET 2010 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux 

I run qemu-kvm like this:

qemu-kvm -hda /dev/sda2 -cdrom /home/willowisp/dwn/super_grub_disk_hybrid-1.98s1.iso -m 1024 -smp 2 -enable-kvm -vga std

ty.

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Everything less than immortality is a complete waste of time!

taliriktug

Member

Registered: 2014-11-24

Posts: 1

Re: qemu-kvm Could not initialize SDL(No available video device) - exiting

This thread appears as one of the first lines in my search engine by query 'qemu Could not initialize SDL(No available video device)', so here is some explanation.
You run X11 as a usual (non-root) user, while qemu-kvm (or qemu-system-x86_64 in my case) needs to be run as root sometimes. When qemu tries to open a window it fails, because it haven't running session. Possible solution would be to run qemu with graphical sudo, such as kdesudo or gksu:

kdesudo qemu-system-x86_64 -- -hda /dev/sdc