Actually, the newer releases of qemu-system-s390x does have CCW based virtio emulation, so it’s actually possible to get a recent copy of Debian (Jessie) installed. Not easily, mind you, but it could be done.

actually the disk image is blank. This is simply booting off the ramdisk/initrd on the 390. To switch to the console, you have to hit control+alt+2 and then you can see.

This was more of a ‘wow it does do something!’ kind of post rather than a full blown system.

I read your suggestion about using an older version of qemu-img to convert to raw and then a newer version of qemu-img to convert back to newer qcow2. To a newcomer to qemu that is a formidable task requiring a toolchain and a specific source revision.

Also, every potential user of your download is forced to do the same remediation. You could fix it once and for all, surely in far less time than any of your readers could manage.