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xPack QEMU Arm v2.8.0-9 released

· 5 min read
Liviu Ionescu (ilg)
Liviu Ionescu (ilg)

Version 2.8.0-9 is a maintenance release; it adds support for running on Arm platforms, like Raspberry Pi.

This is the xPack distribution of QEMU for Arm Cortex-M devices (formerly part of the GNU MCU Eclipse project).

There are separate binaries for Windows, macOS and GNU/Linux, 32/64-bit.

Starting with this version, support for 32/64-bit Arm GNU/Linux platforms, like Raspberry Pi, was added.

Download​

The binary files are available from GitHub Releases.

Install​

The easiest way to install this specific version, is by using xpm:

xpm install @xpack-dev-tools/qemu-arm@2.8.0-9.1 -verbose

Comprehensive instructions for installing xPack QEMU Arm on different platforms can be found in the Install Guide.

Compliance​

xPack QEMU Arm currently is based on the official QEMU, with major changes.

The current version is based on:

  • QEMU version 2.8.0, commit 0737f32 from Dec 20th, 2016.

Changes​

Compared to the master qemu-system-arm, the changes are major, all application class Arm devices were removed and replaced by several Cortex-M devices.

The supported boards are:

xPack 64-bit QEMU v2.8.0 (qemu-system-gnuarmeclipse).

Supported boards:
  Maple                LeafLab Arduino-style STM32 microcontroller board (r5)
  NUCLEO-F103RB        ST Nucleo Development Board for STM32 F1 series
  NUCLEO-F411RE        ST Nucleo Development Board for STM32 F4 series
  NetduinoGo           Netduino GoBus Development Board with STM32F4
  NetduinoPlus2        Netduino Development Board with STM32F4
  OLIMEXINO-STM32      Olimex Maple (Arduino-like) Development Board
  STM32-E407           Olimex Development Board for STM32F407ZGT6
  STM32-H103           Olimex Header Board for STM32F103RBT6
  STM32-P103           Olimex Prototype Board for STM32F103RBT6
  STM32-P107           Olimex Prototype Board for STM32F107VCT6
  STM32F0-Discovery    ST Discovery kit for STM32F051 lines
  STM32F4-Discovery    ST Discovery kit for STM32F407/417 lines
  STM32F429I-Discovery ST Discovery kit for STM32F429/439 lines
  generic              Generic Cortex-M board; use -mcu to define the device

Supported MCUs:
  STM32F051R8
  STM32F103RB
  STM32F107VC
  STM32F405RG
  STM32F407VG
  STM32F407ZG
  STM32F411RE
  STM32F429ZI

Warning: support for hardware floating point on Cortex-M4 devices is not available yet.

Known problems​

  • Ctrl-C does not interrupt the execution if the --nographic option is used.

Documentation​

The original documentation is available in the share/doc folder.

Supported platforms​

Binaries for Windows, macOS and GNU/Linux are provided.

The binaries were built using the xPack Build Box (XBB), a set of build environments based on slightly older distributions, that should be compatible with most recent systems.

  • x86/x64 GNU/Linux: all binaries were built with GCC 9.3, running in an Ubuntu 12 Docker container
  • arm64/arm GNU/Linux: all binaries were built with GCC 9.3, running in an Ubuntu 16 Docker container
  • x86/x64 Windows: all binaries were built with mingw-w64 GCC 9.3, running in an Ubuntu 12 Docker container
  • x64 macOS: all binaries were built with GCC 9.3, running in a separate folder on macOS 10.10.5.

Build​

The scripts used to build this distribution are in:

  • distro-info/scripts

For the prerequisites and more details on the build procedure, please see the README-MAINTAINER page.

Travis tests​

The first set of tests were performed on Travis, by running a simple script to check if the binaries start on a wide range of platforms and distributions:

Tests​

The binaries were testes on Windows 10 Pro 32/64-bit, Ubuntu 18 LTS 64-bit, Xubuntu 18 LTS 32-bit and macOS 10.14.

The tests consist in running a simple blinky application on the graphically emulated STM32F4DISCOVERY board. The binaries were those generated by the simple Eclipse projects available in the xPack GNU Arm Embedded GCC project. Use the arm-f4b-fs-debug-qemu debug luncher available in the arm-f4b-fs project.

On Arm platforms, where Eclipse is not yet available, the binaries were tested on Raspberry Pi OS 10 (buster) 32-bit by manually starting the blinky test on the emulated STM32F4DISCOVERY board.

~/opt/xPacks/@xpack-dev-tools/qemu-arm/2.8.0-9.1/.content/bin/qemu-system-gnuarmeclipse --version

mkdir -p ~/Downloads
(cd ~/Downloads; curl -L --fail -o f407-disc-blink-tutorial.elf \
https://github.com/xpack-dev-tools/qemu-eclipse-test-projects/raw/master/f407-disc-blink-tutorial/Debug/f407-disc-blink-tutorial.elf)

~/opt/xPacks/@xpack-dev-tools/qemu-arm/2.8.0-9.1/.content/bin/qemu-system-gnuarmeclipse \
--board STM32F4-Discovery \
-d unimp,guest_errors \
--nographic \
--image ~/Downloads/f407-disc-blink-tutorial.elf \
--semihosting-config enable=on,target=native \
--semihosting-cmdline test 6

DISPLAY=:1.0 ~/opt/xPacks/@xpack-dev-tools/qemu-arm/2.8.0-9.1/.content/bin/qemu-system-gnuarmeclipse \
--board STM32F4-Discovery \
-d unimp,guest_errors \
--image ~/Downloads/f407-disc-blink-tutorial.elf \
--semihosting-config enable=on,target=native \
--semihosting-cmdline test 6

On Raspberry Pi OS 10 (buster) 64-bit the program was able to run in non graphic mode, but did not start in graphic mode due to a missing driver. To be further investigated.

Checksums​

The SHA-256 hashes for the files are:

856f8970b0a159d9a1bbf56709f3a5f32a26c2448948d51f82b4b3f7d949f7bd
xpack-qemu-arm-2.8.0-9-darwin-x64.tar.gz

c8c8b3e22f2d508f60440018c48171f11d7cf0b384b5b2131017f1c1f7742a44
xpack-qemu-arm-2.8.0-9-linux-arm64.tar.gz

8503d11a833e1d13c43d8d444a69984b9416d6cf05663f68ec0e2f01ceab448a
xpack-qemu-arm-2.8.0-9-linux-arm.tar.gz

ad073b730a2d4366f562fa15b91ad6e02c212fa693d7677921fc343c23cba111
xpack-qemu-arm-2.8.0-9-linux-x32.tar.gz

ce5979e96c84255a818eac360f83e7739673f3d842c700cad29b70eac8c67ee6
xpack-qemu-arm-2.8.0-9-linux-x64.tar.gz

5c811889b6b182b1767a89c21793a7cccfa4fdf8914efb616155df2b0e505f4a
xpack-qemu-arm-2.8.0-9-win32-x32.zip

3bc5ec953227112b45c36713083e1dbba4d3a6d3d917eb617694217e8cfc8b00
xpack-qemu-arm-2.8.0-9-win32-x64.zip

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Credit to Shields IO for the badges and to Somsubhra/github-release-stats for the individual file counters.