This is an issue that has followed me throughout multiple versions of RHEL, from 7.X, and now onwards to 9.X, with multiple versions of QEMU built against it, all while experiencing the same issue. I begin the RHEL build with a minimal install, with the Virtual Machine Host packages installed. I then go on to install the gnome-workstation group of packages, which allows me to run the xinit command to begin a desktop environment.

I have multiple virtual machines that are loaded onto this hypervisor, and each uses a gtk3 display through QEMU to display on a local tty. I am running the xinit command with the qemu-system-x86_64 command (to run the VM) as an argument, which should start the xinit session and the virtual machine at the same time. For example, I run the command “xinit — :2 vt2” which should load the virtual machine with a gtk output on tty2. And it does, so long as I manually switch to the tty2 interface. The problem is that it does not actually start the VM until the system is switched to the tty that the VM is started on.

I tried starting a VM on a tty that wasn’t currently active, but the VM didn’t actually boot until the system switched to the tty the VM was being booting on.