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xPack QEMU Arm v2.8.0-9 released

· 5 min read

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

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

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

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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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