Run the emulation with: qemu-system-i386 -M pc -kernel output/images/bzImage -drive file=output/images/rootfs.ext2,if=virtio,format=raw -append root=/dev/vda -net nic,model=virtio -net user Optionally add -smp N to emulate a SMP system with N CPUs. The login prompt will appear in the graphical window. Tested with QEMU 2.5.0