In previous versions, /usr/bin/kvm was a standalone binary that enabled hardware-accelerated virtualization by default. In 9.10, /usr/bin/kvm links to /usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64 which requres the -enable-kvm flag to use hardware virtualization acceleration. libvirt does not supply this flag. In libvirt 0.7.4 this appears to be fixed, release notes include: "qemu-kvm needs -enable-kvm flag for VT optimization (Steve Yarmie)"
ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Mon Dec 14 11:50:19 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
ExecutablePath: /usr/sbin/libvirtd
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: libvirt-bin 0.7.0-1ubuntu13.1
ProcEnviron:
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-16.53-generic
SourcePackage: libvirt
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-16-generic i686
XsessionErrors:
(gnome-settings-daemon:3311): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
(gnome-settings-daemon:3311): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
(nautilus:3412): Eel-CRITICAL **: eel_preferences_get_boolean: assertion `preferences_is_initialized ()' failed
(polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:3445): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `initialization_value != 0' failed
(gnome-panel:3411): Gdk-WARNING **: /build/buildd/gtk+2.0-2.18.3/gdk/x11/gdkdrawable-x11.c:952 drawable is not a pixmap or window
This may be a non-issue...it does appear that qemu-system-x86_64 is utilizing the kvm kernel modules without the -enable-kvm flag.
Prior to starting the VM:
lsmod |grep kvm
kvm_intel 43816 0
kvm 162688 1 kvm_intel
After starting the VM:
lsmod |grep kvm
kvm_intel 43816 3
kvm 162688 1 kvm_intel