Developing embedded systems requires physical board. Boost your project using QEMU system emulator.

1. Using QEMU
for
Cross Development
Tetsuyuki Kobayashi
Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 1

2. Let's use QEMU
to boost your project
Real system : System emulator
=
Atoms : Bits
This is what I impress today.
Take advantage of 'bits'!
Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 2
”Being Digital” by Nicholas Negroponte
http://archives.obs-us.com/obs/english/books/nn/ch01c01.htm

3. Who am I?
 20+ years involved in embedded systems
 10 years in real time OS, such as iTRON
 10 years in embedded Java Virtual Machine
 Now Gcc, Linux, QEMU, Android, …
 Blogs
 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/embedded/ (Personal)
 http://blog.kmckk.com/ (Corporate)
 Twitter
 @tetsu_koba
Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 3

4. Today's topic
 What is QEMU
 Atoms vs Bits
 QEMU is NOT good for …
 QEMU is GOOD for …
 Practices (from KMC blog)

Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 4

5. About QEMU
 http://wiki.qemu.org/
 QEMU is
a generic and open source
machine emulator
and virtualizer.
Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 5

6. QEMU is used …
 As virtualizer,
 KVM
 Xen
 VirtualBox
 Host CPU == Target CPU
 Today I don't focus on this.
Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 6

7. QEMU is used …
 As a system emulator,
 Host CPU != Target CPU
 Many open source projects such as:
 Android
 Maemo
 Symbian
 ARM port of Open Solaris
 ...
Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 7

8. QEMU has …
 Virtual disk.
 Many of virtual devices.
 Tiny Code Generator (TCG) to execute fast.
 Port redirector, Virtual network card.
 Bootloader to boot Linux kernel.
 gdbserver to connect gdb.
 ...
Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 8

9. QEMU is *NOT* …
 Cycle accurate simulator (which is
usually used for H/W development).
 So QEMU is not good for developing device
driver which have to take account of accurate
cycles.
Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 9

10. License
 The whole QEMU is GPL.
 The QEMU virtual CPU core library (libqemu.a)
is LGPL.
 TCG is BSD like license.
 Each virtual hardware has their own license.
 Check the source file.
 QEMU is a trademark of Fabrice Bellard.
Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 10

11. Atoms vs Bits
 Developing embedded system require real
system (= the physical board).
 Because the GOAL is there.

 System emulator is good complement for it.

 System emulator is 'bits', so free from any
physical limitation.
 I mention QEMU for the system emulator.
Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 11

12. How to get
 The physical board needs money to buy.
 Some special board can not buy because of dis-
continue.

 QEMU does not need any money to get.
Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 12

13. Footprint
 The physical board needs space to put.
 No space for a dozen of boards on your desk.

 QEMU does not need any desk space.
 (but disk space.)
Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 13

14. Portability (in Physical)
 Bring the physical board and set it up is a work.
 The board might be crash in trouble.

 You are happy to bring QEMU in your USB key.
 Or you can transfer it via broad band network.
Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 14

15. Duplication & Distribution
 The physical board can not be duplicate.

 You can duplicate your QEMU as many as you
like and distribute them.
 You might ask for experts to take a look your
problem on QEMU.
Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 15

16. QEMU is *NOT* good for
 Performance evaluation.
 Especially SMP mode.
 SMP is simulated in single thread, not parallel.
 Deadly slow.
 Interesting session about QEMU multi core
 Japan Technical Jamboree24, Dec 2008
 CELF_JTJ24_qemu-multicore_English.pdf
 http://tree.celinuxforum.org/CelfPubWiki/JapanTechnicalJamboree24
Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 16

17. QEMU is *NOT* good for
 developing a device driver for a
*NEW* device.
 Before, you need the accurate virtual device for the
device.
 You have to develop a device driver with REAL
device at first. Then you can develop virtual device
with the device driver.
Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 17

18. QEMU is *NOT* good for
 Compiling a huge mount of source
code.
 Too slow for compiling.
 It takes more than one night to compile Linux
kernel.
Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 18

19. QEMU is GOOD for
 Learning.
 Even if you tweak too much to break, you lose
nothing.
 Not only for beginners. Experts may examine the
latest Linux kernel except for x86/x86_64, using
QEMU.
Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 19

20. QEMU is GOOD for
 Developing applications.
 without the real system.
 Android SDK is a perfect example.
 also good for designers to evaluate UI.
Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 20

21. QEMU is GOOD for
 Testing.
 Fault injection by the virtual device.
 You can duplicate as many as you like and test
them in parallel.
 Still need testing on real system.
Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 21

22. Practice #1
 Following blog pages are written in Japanese. Try
machine translation such as Google. It will work.
 Building QEMU from source archive
 QEMU requires zlib and SDL to build.
 http://blog.kmckk.com/archives/2223793.html
 Net-installing Debian on QEMU
 Don't use obsolete installer.
 http://blog.kmckk.com/archives/2233167.html
Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 22

23. Practice #2
 Rebuilding kernel from Debian source package
 Get the source package and extract and patch it on
ARM QEMU.
 Do compiling on PC Linux.
 QEMU system emulator is too slow to compile
kernel.
 http://blog.kmckk.com/archives/2237994.html

24. Practice #3
 How to setup NFS server for QEMU
 Need ”insecure” option for NFS because QEMU
redirect NFS port.
 http://blog.kmckk.com/archives/2257952.html
Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 24

25. Practice #4
 Booting Debian in NFS root on ARM QEMU
 Booting from NFS root is good for early-stage
developing.
 You can read/write target file system any time.
 You can boot kernel before implementing storage
device.
 You don't have to care about size of storage.
 http://blog.kmckk.com/archives/2257962.html

26. Practice #5
 Build latest kernel in kernel.org and try SMP
mode
 Finally the latest kernel successfully ran.
 versatile_defconfig remains old. It need updated.
 You can try another virtual board easily on QEMU.
 SMP implementation of QEMU is just simple and
can not run fast.
 http://blog.kmckk.com/archives/2333826.html

27. Practice #6
 Try ARM Ubuntu using QEMU
 Ubuntu 9.04 is built for ARMv5TE.
 Ubuntu 9.10, ARMv6.
 Ubuntu 10.04, ARMv7 Thumb2.
 Debian, ARMv4T
 Rootstock script is nice and easy to build Ubuntu
root file system.
 http://blog.kmckk.com/archives/2339128.html

28. Practice #7
 Using debugger with QEMU
 Dive into QEMU itself using gdb.
 Connect gdb to target machine of QEMU.
 Debug both the target and QEMU itself using 2
gdbs.
 Another debugger for QEMU.
 http://blog.kmckk.com/archives/2363473.html

29. Other topics
 TCG and QEMU internals
 http://blog.kmckk.com/archives/2067157.html
 http://blog.kmckk.com/archives/2067178.html
 http://blog.kmckk.com/archives/2067210.html
 Using user mode emulation of QEMU + binfmt
+ chroot to self-build
 http://blog.kmckk.com/archives/2342452.html
Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 29

30. Q&A
 & Demo
Thank you for listening!
Any comments to blogs are welcome.
Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 30

31. One more thing ...
KMC PARTNER debugger for QEMU
Breaking at do_execve in linux kernel running on Android emulator.
Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd. 31