libvirt unable to start VM with SDL display

[Jamin W. Collins]

Since upgrading to 10.10, attempting to start any VM (new or pre-existing) that utilizes an SDL display fails. Initially, I thought it might be something with qemu/kvm. However, starting a VM with an SDL display manually with a command like the following, works fine:

kvm -m 512 -cdrom dsl.iso -boot d

I then thought it might be something with my pre-existing VMs definitions. So, I created a completely new VM using virt-manager. As long as the VM is using a VNC display it starts fine. However, once the VNC display is removed and replaced with an SDL display it fails to start.

Log entries such as the following are created:

LC_ALL=C PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/bin XAUTHORITY=/home/jcollins/.Xauthority DISPLAY=:0.0 /usr/bin/kvm -S -M pc-0.12 -enable-kvm -m 512 -smp 1,sockets=1,cores=1,threads=1 -name testing -uuid 37452670-32a9-4f86-8095-bc50c4111483 -nodefaults -chardev socket,id=monitor,path=/var/lib/libvirt/qemu/testing.monitor,server,nowait -mon chardev=monitor,mode=readline -rtc base=utc -boot c -drive file=/opt/vms/testing.img,if=none,id=drive-virtio-disk0,boot=on,format=raw -device virtio-blk-pci,bus=pci.0,addr=0x5,drive=drive-virtio-disk0,id=virtio-disk0 -drive if=none,media=cdrom,id=drive-ide0-1-0,readonly=on,format=raw -device ide-drive,bus=ide.1,unit=0,drive=drive-ide0-1-0,id=ide0-1-0 -device virtio-net-pci,vlan=0,id=net0,mac=52:54:00:5e:ef:e6,bus=pci.0,addr=0x3 -net tap,fd=45,vlan=0,name=hostnet0 -chardev pty,id=serial0 -device isa-serial,chardev=serial0 -usb -sdl -vga cirrus -device virtio-balloon-pci,id=balloon0,bus=pci.0,addr=0x6
char device redirected to /dev/pts/4
No protocol specified
No protocol specified
Could not initialize SDL - exiting

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: libvirt-bin 0.8.3-1ubuntu14
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-22.33-generic 2.6.35.4
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-22-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: amd64
Date: Thu Oct 7 14:43:14 2010
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release amd64 (20091027)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: libvirt