No X anywhere in my environment <smile>. Somehow I normally manage! Actually that command errors out: /virsh # iface-list error: Failed to list active interfaces error: this function is not supported by the connection driver: virConnectNumOfInterfaces/ My XML had the type wrong, setting it to raw. Alas, I still see the invoked KVM being passed: /-drive file=/kvms/test1.img,if=none,id=drive-virtio-disk0,boot=on,format=qcow2 / The "if=none" is the problem, it needs to be "if=virtio". KVM is also still being passed the "-S" flag as its first parameter, so the CPUs are not starting. At this point, I'm just editing the XML, its easier. Once I get one working, I can tweak for the others. Virt-install at least got me started. Kevin