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How to test a NightRun image in QEMU before flashing with NIGHTRUN

Build a NightRun image with a Llama model and boot it in QEMU to check it without touching hardware.

Who it is forA developer or tinkerer who wants to see the boot and chat flow on a Linux machine before writing to any USB stick.

The problemFlashing the wrong device or debugging boot problems on real hardware is slow and risky, so an emulator check comes first.

The outcomeA built nightrun.img that boots in a QEMU window and shows the NightRun chat with live status.

What you need first

  • A Linux machine with Rust stable and nightly installed
  • About 6 GB of free disk for a model plus the image
  • A USB stick (x86_64 target) or microSD card (Raspberry Pi 5 target), or QEMU for testing without hardware
  • For real hardware: a 64-bit UEFI x86_64 PC with Secure Boot off, or a Raspberry Pi 5

Steps

  1. Run git clone https://github.com/hardrave/NIGHTRUN.git and then cd NIGHTRUN.
  2. Run curl -L -o models/Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct-Q8_0.gguf https://huggingface.co/bartowski/Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct-GGUF/resolve/main/Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct-Q8_0.gguf. (inferred, check the README)
  3. Run cargo run --release -p nrconvert -- models/Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct-Q8_0.gguf models/model.nrm to convert the model to .nrm. (inferred, check the README)
  4. Run cargo xtask image --model models/model.nrm to build nightrun.img.
  5. Run cargo xtask run --img --mem 4G --window to boot the image in QEMU.

Prompt for your agent

Use the repo hardrave/NIGHTRUN to convert the model at <target> (a GGUF file path) into models/model.nrm and boot it in QEMU with cargo xtask run --img --mem 4G --window. Expected output: a QEMU window showing the NightRun chat prompt. Verify the nrconvert step reports that it re-validated its own output before you boot.

Caveat. The README lists QEMU as the test path and notes that QEMU rows in its benchmarks come from single scripted runs, so QEMU speed is not a guarantee for real hardware.

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