diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 84fd68f..9fd45c3 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -202,34 +202,6 @@
 server will exit and the destination server will start, watch the client
 terminal for destination server messages.
 
-gpio
-----
-
-A [gpio](./samples/gpio-pci-idio-16.c) server implements a very simple GPIO
-device that can be used with a Linux VM.
-
-Start the `gpio` server process:
-
-```
-rm /tmp/vfio-user.sock
-./build/samples/gpio-pci-idio-16 -v /tmp/vfio-user.sock &
-```
-
-Next, build `qemu` and start a VM, as described below.
-
-Log in to your guest VM.  You'll probably need to build the `gpio-pci-idio-16`
-kernel module yourself - it's part of the standard Linux kernel, but not usually
-built and shipped on x86. 
-
-Once built, you should be able to load the module and observe the emulated GPIO
-device's pins:
-
-```
-insmod gpio-pci-idio-16.ko
-cat /sys/class/gpio/gpiochip480/base > /sys/class/gpio/export
-for ((i=0;i<12;i++)); do cat /sys/class/gpio/OUT0/value; done
-```
-
 shadow_ioeventfd_server
 -----------------------
 
@@ -241,34 +213,11 @@
 Other usage notes
 =================
 
-Live migration
---------------
-
-The `master` branch of `libvfio-user` implements live migration with a protocol
-based on vfio's v2 protocol. Currently, there is no support for this in any qemu
-client. For current use cases that support live migration, such as SPDK, you
-should refer to the [migration-v1 branch](https://github.com/nutanix/libvfio-user/tree/migration-v1).
-
 qemu
 ----
 
-`vfio-user` client support is not yet merged into `qemu`. Instead, download and
-build [this branch of qemu](https://github.com/oracle/qemu/tree/vfio-user-6.2).
-
-Create a Linux install image, or use a pre-made one.
-
-Then, presuming you have a `libvfio-user` server listening on the UNIX socket
-`/tmp/vfio-user.sock`, you can start your guest VM with something like this:
-
-```
-./x86_64-softmmu/qemu-system-x86_64 -mem-prealloc -m 256 \
--object memory-backend-file,id=ram-node0,prealloc=yes,mem-path=/dev/hugepages/gpio,share=yes,size=256M \
--numa node,memdev=ram-node0 \
--kernel ~/vmlinuz -initrd ~/initrd -nographic \
--append "console=ttyS0 root=/dev/sda1 single" \
--hda ~/bionic-server-cloudimg-amd64-0.raw \
--device vfio-user-pci,socket=/tmp/vfio-user.sock
-```
+Step-by-step instructions for using `libvfio-user` with `qemu` can be [found
+here](docs/qemu.md).
 
 SPDK
 ----
@@ -302,6 +251,14 @@
 </qemu:commandline>
 ```
 
+Live migration
+--------------
+
+The `master` branch of `libvfio-user` implements live migration with a protocol
+based on vfio's v2 protocol. Currently, there is no support for this in any qemu
+client. For current use cases that support live migration, such as SPDK, you
+should refer to the [migration-v1 branch](https://github.com/nutanix/libvfio-user/tree/migration-v1).
+
 History
 =======
 
diff --git a/docs/qemu.md b/docs/qemu.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e17e33a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/qemu.md
@@ -0,0 +1,112 @@
+qemu usage walkthrough
+======================
+
+In this walk-through, we'll use an Ubuntu cloudimg along with the
+[gpio sample server](../samples/gpio-pci-idio-16.c) to emulate a very simple GPIO
+device.
+
+Building qemu
+-------------
+
+`vfio-user` client support is not yet merged into `qemu`. Instead, download and
+build [jlevon's master.vfio-user branch of
+qemu](https://github.com/jlevon/qemu/tree/master.vfio-user); for example:
+
+```
+git clone -b master.vfio-user git@github.com:jlevon/qemu.git
+cd qemu
+
+./configure --prefix=/usr --enable-kvm --enable-vnc --target-list=x86_64-softmmu --enable-debug  --enable-vfio-user-client
+make -j
+```
+
+Configuring the cloudimg
+------------------------
+
+Set up the necessary metadata files:
+
+```
+sudo apt install cloud-image-utils
+
+$ cat metadata.yaml
+instance-id: iid-local01
+local-hostname: cloudimg
+
+$ cat user-data.yaml
+#cloud-config
+ssh_import_id:
+  - gh:jlevon
+
+cloud-localds seed.img user-data.yaml metadata.yaml
+```
+
+don't forget to replace `jlevon` with *your* github user name.
+
+Starting the server
+-------------------
+
+Start the `gpio` server process:
+
+```
+rm -f /tmp/vfio-user.sock
+./build/samples/gpio-pci-idio-16 -v /tmp/vfio-user.sock &
+```
+
+Booting the guest OS
+--------------------
+
+Make sure your system has hugepages available:
+
+```
+$ cat /proc/sys/vm/nr_hugepages
+1024
+```
+
+Now you should be able to start qemu:
+
+```
+$ imgpath=/path/to/bionic-server-cloudimg-amd64.img
+$ sudo ~/src/build/qemu-system-x86_64 \
+   -machine accel=kvm,type=q35 -cpu host -m 2G \
+   -mem-prealloc -object memory-backend-file,id=ram-node0,prealloc=yes,mem-path=/dev/hugepages/gpio,share=yes,size=2G \
+   -nographic \
+   -device virtio-net-pci,netdev=net0 \
+   -netdev user,id=net0,hostfwd=tcp::2222-:22 \
+   -drive if=virtio,format=qcow2,file=$imgpath \
+   -drive if=virtio,format=raw,file=seed.img \
+   -device vfio-user-pci,socket=/tmp/vfio-user.sock
+```
+
+Log in to your VM and load the kernel driver:
+
+```
+$ ssh -p 2222 ubuntu@localhost
+...
+$ sudo apt install linux-modules-extra-$(uname -r)
+$ sudo modprobe gpio-pci-idio-16
+```
+
+Now we should be able to observe the emulated GPIO device's pins:
+
+```
+$ sudo su -
+# cat /sys/class/gpio/gpiochip480/base > /sys/class/gpio/export
+# for ((i=0;i<12;i++)); do cat /sys/class/gpio/OUT0/value; done
+```
+
+and the server should output something like:
+
+```
+gpio: region2: read 0 from (0:1)
+gpio: region2: read 0 from (0:1)
+gpio: region2: read 0 from (0:1)
+gpio: region2: read 0x1 from (0:1)
+gpio: region2: read 0x1 from (0:1)
+gpio: region2: read 0x1 from (0:1)
+gpio: region2: read 0x2 from (0:1)
+gpio: region2: read 0x2 from (0:1)
+gpio: region2: read 0x2 from (0:1)
+gpio: region2: read 0x3 from (0:1)
+gpio: region2: read 0x3 from (0:1)
+gpio: region2: read 0x3 from (0:1)
+```