Re: [Qemu-devel] How to mount, install and/or otherwise use an ARM Zer o Client image wi th Qemu in Windows

[Peter Maydell]

On 29 January 2014 19:30, address@hidden <address@hidden> wrote:
> Hi Peter and thanks for the quick response, it's very much appreciated!
>
> Sorry I forgot to include more details.  To make sure I was giving you the
> best data possible I just asked our Engineers exactly what they have and are
> trying to emulate.
>
> A hardware vendor has given us several different variations of their tweaked
> OS for us to test with.  I have it as a .dd.gz file, a .vhd, a .vhdx, and as
> a bootable disc.  It is designed to run on an Altas/ARM system, with this
> particular image being native to the Texas Instruments TMS320DM8148 ARM®
> Cortex–A8 single core running at 1 GHz with 256 KB L2 cache.  The ARM
> Cortex-A8 is Binary compatibility with ARM926, ARM1136, and ARM1176
> Processors, which I *believe* I read is covered under Qemu.  I read through
> posts of other users emulating the ARM1176, so I think I have a good chance
> at being covered on this.

These CPUs are not binary-compatible in a trivial way. You can
run userspace ARM1176 code on an A8, certainly, but not necessarily
the other way around (if the code uses ARMv7 features these will
not be present on the 1176). And system mode code, ie kernels,
typically includes CPU-specific code, which won't run on the
wrong CPU. (As it happens QEMU emulates the Cortex-A8 anyway.)

More significantly, the CPU may be compatible, but the system
(devices on the board and in the SoC) can be significantly different
from ARM board to ARM board. QEMU doesn't have a model of this
TI SoC, I'm afraid. You need to either get the people providing
you with the OS to provide something that will run on one of the
ARM boards QEMU does emulate, or you need to run the OS on the
real hardware, I'm afraid.

> ____________________________________________________________
> Amazing Sleep Secret

This (adverts in your email signature) is amazingly rude.
Please don't post to qemu-devel again with those.

thanks
-- PMM