After a year and a half of silence, the lightweight QEMU frontend nEMU has returned with a new release — version 3.4 — featuring some improvements and new features for users who prefer managing virtual machines directly from the terminal.
For those unfamiliar, nEMU is a text-based user interface built with ncurses, designed to make working with QEMU — the popular open-source machine emulator and virtualizer — more convenient. Instead of manually typing long QEMU commands, nEMU lets users create, launch, and control virtual machines from a structured terminal interface.
The highlight of the new release is the VM preview feature, which uses the Kitty graphics protocol to display virtual machine screenshots directly within supported terminals. Version 3.4 also adds several configuration enhancements, including a configurable refresh timeout for the properties window and support for both qcow2 and raw disk image formats.
Additionally, a new background mode option lets users decide whether to run the application in the background or keep it attached to the console — a change that facilitates embedding tools like spice-kitten into the UI. Lastly, the update also fixes import issues that appeared in certain locales.
For more information, see the changelog.
Image credits: nEMU
