[Qemu-devel] [ANN] PyQemu 1.0 (and machine plugin patches)

[Maria Zabolotnaya]

Hello,

My name is Maria Zabolotnaya, I am a Google Summer of Code student from Handhelds.org organization. This summer I worked on a project to create new ARM machine emulations using the Python programming language. I am glad to announce that the work is complete and results are available in the form of Python bindings for QEMU (PyQemu) and set of auxiliary patches to QEMU source code. 

The release 1.0 is available at this time at http://handhelds.org/~pfalcon/gsoc/ . It includes:
1. Python bindings for QEMU developed using ctypes Python module (native Python FFI (Foreign Function Interface), no C glue code is required; part of standard library since Python 
2.5, available as add-on module for earlier versions).
2. Support for building QEMU as a shared library as required by ctypes to use it. 
3. Patches to export more symbols and accessors from QEMU shared library.
4. Patch to allow to override ARM machine type from command line.
5. Patch to allow to load machine definitions from external shared libraries (plugins).
6. Samples of machine plugins (C).
7. Basic emulation of HTC ASIC3 peripheral controller, used in the number of Compaq/HP/HTC ARM PDAs (iPAQ h3900, iPAQ h4000, iPAQ hx4700, HTC Universal, etc.), written in Python.
8. Emulation of HP iPAQ h4000 PDA (main PDA features): screen, touchscreen, buttons, SD controller - written in Python.

The archive (pyqemu-1.0.tar.gz) contains all materials above together with README describing how to make it run. For iPAQ h4000 emulation, sample kernel/userspace images are available in 
images-h4000.tar.bz2.

This project was developed under auspices of Handhelds org to facilitate development of emulations of PDA hardware to help with kernel porting and debugging on those handhelds. I hope that it will be useful for this purpose, but its scope is wider and may interest other parties and open new uses for the QEMU emulator.


I would like to thank following parties:

Google, Inc.for the amazing GSoC program
Handhelds.org for letting me to be a student on their behalf 
Paul Sokolovsky, my mentor, for guiding me through this work 
Andrzej Zaborowski on whose work on PXA/PDA, etc. emulation this work is largely based 
QEMU project for the best emulation platform ever

Best regards,
Maria Zabolotnaya.