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Hello again, Capricorny.

You have energized me to try out your original suggestion, despite my
admitted inertia. I have a Win8 portable as well as my trusty Win7.
Both are low-end Inspirons. I've not been using the Win8 up to now
for Linux purposes. Turns out the Win8 portable, which has dual
Celerons, HAS built-in virtualization capability and moreover passes
the kvm test using a 7.4.1 LiveUSB.

The hardest part was getting around Win8's Secure Boot and Windows-to-go
obstacles. That done, the kvm test was very encouraging. Knoppix 7.4.1
looks good on the newer machine.

I shall now start trying to decipher the meanings of all the qemu
parameters. Once over that hurdle, I expect I may agree to all, or at
least most, of your counter-arguments. I expect some differences may
exist between your device assignments and my own; and, I'd not like
to write over Win8 in this process.