Variants
You can choose any of these variants
armel
armhf
the urls have this format
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/release/current/{variant}/iso-cd/
http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/buster/main/installer-{variant}/current/images/netboot/
http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/stretch/main/installer-{variant}/current/images/netboot/
Download initrd & vmlinux
Download from
Buster (current): http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/buster/main/installer-armhf/current/images/netboot/
Stretch: http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/stretch/main/installer-armhf/current/images/netboot/
$ wget http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/buster/main/installer-armhf/current/images/netboot/initrd.gz -O initrd.gz
$ wget http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/buster/main/installer-armhf/current/images/netboot/vmlinuz -O vmlinuz
Download Debian iso
Important! The initrd already acts as an installer so this step is optional
Download mipsel netinst from
Buster (current): http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/release/current/armhf/iso-cd/
Stretch: http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/archive/9.13.0/armhf/iso-cd/
$ wget https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/armhf/iso-cd/debian-10.5.0-armhf-netinst.iso -O debian-armhf-netinst.iso
Create a new hard disk
$ qemu-img create -f qcow2 hda.qcow 10G
Install Debian
$ qemu-system-arm -M virt \
-cdrom debian-armhf-netinst.iso \
-hda hda.qcow \
-append "root=/dev/sda1" \
-kernel vmlinuz \
-initrd initrd.gz \
-m 2048 \
-smp 2 \
-boot d \
-nographic \
-no-reboot
Boot from hda
Important note: initrd-boot.img and vmlinuz-armmp-lpae is the file copied from hda.qcow and NOT the original one downloaded from ftp.debian.org.
If you use the original file the Debian installer will return!.
Copy initrd.img
sudo apt-get install libguestfs-tools
sudo guestmount -a hda.qcow -i /mnt
sudo cp /mnt/boot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-10-armmp-lpae vmlinuz-armmp-lpae
sudo chown "$USER":"$USER" vmlinuz-armmp-lpae
sudo cp /mnt/boot/initrd.img-4.19.0-10-armmp-lpae initrd-boot.img
sudo chown "$USER":"$USER" initrd-boot.img
sudo umount /mnt
Run VM
$ qemu-system-arm -M virt \
-hda hda.qcow \
-append "root=/dev/sda1" \
-kernel vmlinuz-armmp-lpae \
-initrd initrd-boot.img \
-m 2048 \
-smp 2 \
-nographic \
-no-reboot
References