I wanted to setup a linux kernel development environment. Because I use both GNU/Linux, macOS and Windows in my daily life, I also wanted a develoment environment as light as possible.

The best choice I found was using KVM/QEMU: QEMU is a generic and open source machine emulator and virtualizer. QEMU is very flexible and portable. If both host and guest are the same architecture, QEMU can make use of KVM. For instance, when running qemu-system-x86 on a x86 compatible processor, you can take advantage of the KVM acceleration giving you a slightly more powerfull environment.

As the title suggest, I’m using Archlinux. In order to install qemu (without GUI) and all the tools needed to build your image, use: