QEMU in a terminal

When I use text only VMs I usually find more convenient to just work from terminal. After a bit of research I found the perfect solution for me.

Inside your guest system edit /etc/default/grub to start a serial console on /dev/ttyS0 and disable GRUB graphical terminal:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="console=ttyS0"
GRUB_TERMINAL=console

Then update GRUB.

Next open /etc/inittab and enable login on the serial console. On Devuan you just need to uncomment this line:

T0:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttyS0 9600 vt100

Serial console however can't dynamically adjust to your terminal resolution. Luckily I found a solution on StackExchange.

After setting up your guest you can now use your VM directly from your terminal emulator, just append -nographic to your QEMU options.