Installation of QEMU

The lab environment can be deployed on a computer via QEMU or on a mobile device via Limbo Emulator (QEMU).

QEMU is a machine emulator and virtualizer. It supports two operation modes: System Emulation for running full virtual machines and User‑Mode Emulation for executing binaries built for a different CPU architecture (About QEMU, 2026).

Installing QEMU on Windows:

Go to the Download QEMU page, open the Windows tab, and in the sentence Stefan Weil provides... select the 32‑bit or 64‑bit platform version.
After following the above link, select the latest QEMU version (for example qemu‑w64‑setup‑20240720.exe), download it and run as administrator by right‑clicking and choosing Run as administrator.

In the Choose Components step, under the System Emulation group, select x86_64 and x86_64w only.
Remember the installation directory in the Choose Install Location step.

Add the QEMU installation directory to the system PATH (variable).
The PATH is a system environment variable that the operating system uses to locate executable files from the command line (PATH (variable) - Wikipedia, 2026).

Press Win + X and select System
In the Advanced system settings window, click Environment Variables....
Under System Variables (alternatively, User Variables for individual configuration), find and select Path, then click Edit.
Click New, then enter the QEMU installation directory (e.g., C:\Program Files\QEMU).

To verify that QEMU has been successfully installed and added to the Path, open Command Prompt (press Win + R, type cmd, and press Enter) and run the following command: qemu-system-x86_64 --version. If the command runs and displays the QEMU version, the Path variable is configured correctly. If you see the message "is not recognized as an internal or external command", the QEMU installation directory is not included in the Path.

Installing Limbo Emulator (QEMU) on Android:

Limbo is a QEMU‑based emulator for Android that allows running x86, ARM, PowerPC, and SPARC systems on Intel x86 and ARM Android devices (GitHub - limboemu/limbo, 2026). Limbo is not available on Google Play, so the APK must be downloaded manually.

Download the latest APK from the Limbo GitHub releases. Ensure that the correct version for the device’s CPU is downloaded (typically ARM).
By default, Android blocks APK installation, so to allow installation from unknown sources open Settings, go to Security or Apps & Notifications and enable Install unknown apps for the browser or file manager.
To install the APK, open the Downloads folder, tap the Limbo.apk file and confirm installation. After installation, the Limbo icon will appear in the app drawer.