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xPack QEMU Arm v8.2.2-1 released

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

Version 8.2.2-1 is a new release; it follows the upstream QEMU release.

The xPack QEMU Arm is a standalone cross-platform binary distribution of QEMU, with several extensions for Arm Cortex-M devices.

There are separate binaries for Windows (64-bit), macOS (x64, arm64) and GNU/Linux (x64, arm64 and arm).

Raspberry Pi

The main targets for the GNU/Linux Arm binaries are the Raspberry Pi class devices (armv7l and aarch64; armv6 is not supported).

Download​

The binary files are available from GitHub Releases.

Prerequisites​

  • x64 GNU/Linux: any system with GLIBC 2.27 or higher (like Ubuntu 18 or later, Debian 10 or later, RedHat 8 or later, Fedora 29 or later, etc)
  • arm64/arm GNU/Linux: any system with GLIBC 2.27 or higher (like Raspberry Pi OS, Ubuntu 18 or later, Debian 10 or later, RedHat 8 or later, Fedora 29 or later, etc)
  • x64 Windows: Windows 7 with the Universal C Runtime (UCRT), Windows 8, Windows 10
  • x64 macOS: 10.13 or later; graphical mode available on 10.14 or later
  • arm64 macOS: 11.6 or later

On GNU/Linux, QEMU requires the X11 libraries to be present. On Debian derived distribution they are already in the system; on RedHat & Arch derived distributions they must be installed explicitly.

Install​

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

xpm install @xpack-dev-tools/qemu-arm@8.2.2-1.2 -verbose

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

Compliance​

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

There are two sets of binaries:

  • qemu-system-arm and qemu-system-aarch64, based on QEMU version 8.2.2, commit 11aa0b1f from 4 Mar 2024;

  • qemu-system-gnuarmeclipse, based on QEMU version 2.8.0, commit 0737f32 from Dec 20th, 2016; this is end-of-life and will be preserved only for compatibility reasons.

Changes​

Compared to the upstream qemu-system-arm and qemu-system-aarch64, there are no major changes.

The supported boards and CPUs are:

$ .../qemu-system-arm -machine help
Supported machines are:
akita                Sharp SL-C1000 (Akita) PDA (PXA270)
ast1030-evb          Aspeed AST1030 MiniBMC (Cortex-M4)
ast2500-evb          Aspeed AST2500 EVB (ARM1176)
ast2600-evb          Aspeed AST2600 EVB (Cortex-A7)
bletchley-bmc        Facebook Bletchley BMC (Cortex-A7)
borzoi               Sharp SL-C3100 (Borzoi) PDA (PXA270)
bpim2u               Bananapi M2U (Cortex-A7)
canon-a1100          Canon PowerShot A1100 IS (ARM946)
cheetah              Palm Tungsten|E aka. Cheetah PDA (OMAP310)
collie               Sharp SL-5500 (Collie) PDA (SA-1110)
connex               Gumstix Connex (PXA255)
cubieboard           cubietech cubieboard (Cortex-A8)
emcraft-sf2          SmartFusion2 SOM kit from Emcraft (M2S010)
fby35-bmc            Facebook fby35 BMC (Cortex-A7)
fby35                Meta Platforms fby35
fp5280g2-bmc         Inspur FP5280G2 BMC (ARM1176)
fuji-bmc             Facebook Fuji BMC (Cortex-A7)
g220a-bmc            Bytedance G220A BMC (ARM1176)
highbank             Calxeda Highbank (ECX-1000)
imx25-pdk            ARM i.MX25 PDK board (ARM926)
integratorcp         ARM Integrator/CP (ARM926EJ-S)
kudo-bmc             Kudo BMC (Cortex-A9)
kzm                  ARM KZM Emulation Baseboard (ARM1136)
lm3s6965evb          Stellaris LM3S6965EVB (Cortex-M3)
lm3s811evb           Stellaris LM3S811EVB (Cortex-M3)
mainstone            Mainstone II (PXA27x)
mcimx6ul-evk         Freescale i.MX6UL Evaluation Kit (Cortex-A7)
mcimx7d-sabre        Freescale i.MX7 DUAL SABRE (Cortex-A7)
microbit             BBC micro:bit (Cortex-M0)
midway               Calxeda Midway (ECX-2000)
mori-bmc             Mori BMC (Cortex-A9)
mps2-an385           ARM MPS2 with AN385 FPGA image for Cortex-M3
mps2-an386           ARM MPS2 with AN386 FPGA image for Cortex-M4
mps2-an500           ARM MPS2 with AN500 FPGA image for Cortex-M7
mps2-an505           ARM MPS2 with AN505 FPGA image for Cortex-M33
mps2-an511           ARM MPS2 with AN511 DesignStart FPGA image for Cortex-M3
mps2-an521           ARM MPS2 with AN521 FPGA image for dual Cortex-M33
mps3-an524           ARM MPS3 with AN524 FPGA image for dual Cortex-M33
mps3-an547           ARM MPS3 with AN547 FPGA image for Cortex-M55
musca-a              ARM Musca-A board (dual Cortex-M33)
musca-b1             ARM Musca-B1 board (dual Cortex-M33)
musicpal             Marvell 88w8618 / MusicPal (ARM926EJ-S)
n800                 Nokia N800 tablet aka. RX-34 (OMAP2420)
n810                 Nokia N810 tablet aka. RX-44 (OMAP2420)
netduino2            Netduino 2 Machine (Cortex-M3)
netduinoplus2        Netduino Plus 2 Machine (Cortex-M4)
none                 empty machine
npcm750-evb          Nuvoton NPCM750 Evaluation Board (Cortex-A9)
nuri                 Samsung NURI board (Exynos4210)
olimex-stm32-h405    Olimex STM32-H405 (Cortex-M4)
orangepi-pc          Orange Pi PC (Cortex-A7)
palmetto-bmc         OpenPOWER Palmetto BMC (ARM926EJ-S)
qcom-dc-scm-v1-bmc   Qualcomm DC-SCM V1 BMC (Cortex A7)
qcom-firework-bmc    Qualcomm DC-SCM V1/Firework BMC (Cortex A7)
quanta-gbs-bmc       Quanta GBS (Cortex-A9)
quanta-gsj           Quanta GSJ (Cortex-A9)
quanta-q71l-bmc      Quanta-Q71l BMC (ARM926EJ-S)
rainier-bmc          IBM Rainier BMC (Cortex-A7)
raspi0               Raspberry Pi Zero (revision 1.2)
raspi1ap             Raspberry Pi A+ (revision 1.1)
raspi2b              Raspberry Pi 2B (revision 1.1)
realview-eb          ARM RealView Emulation Baseboard (ARM926EJ-S)
realview-eb-mpcore   ARM RealView Emulation Baseboard (ARM11MPCore)
realview-pb-a8       ARM RealView Platform Baseboard for Cortex-A8
realview-pbx-a9      ARM RealView Platform Baseboard Explore for Cortex-A9
romulus-bmc          OpenPOWER Romulus BMC (ARM1176)
sabrelite            Freescale i.MX6 Quad SABRE Lite Board (Cortex-A9)
smdkc210             Samsung SMDKC210 board (Exynos4210)
sonorapass-bmc       OCP SonoraPass BMC (ARM1176)
spitz                Sharp SL-C3000 (Spitz) PDA (PXA270)
stm32vldiscovery     ST STM32VLDISCOVERY (Cortex-M3)
supermicro-x11spi-bmc Supermicro X11 SPI BMC (ARM1176)
supermicrox11-bmc    Supermicro X11 BMC (ARM926EJ-S)
sx1                  Siemens SX1 (OMAP310) V2
sx1-v1               Siemens SX1 (OMAP310) V1
tacoma-bmc           OpenPOWER Tacoma BMC (Cortex-A7)
terrier              Sharp SL-C3200 (Terrier) PDA (PXA270)
tiogapass-bmc        Facebook Tiogapass BMC (ARM1176)
tosa                 Sharp SL-6000 (Tosa) PDA (PXA255)
verdex               Gumstix Verdex Pro XL6P COMs (PXA270)
versatileab          ARM Versatile/AB (ARM926EJ-S)
versatilepb          ARM Versatile/PB (ARM926EJ-S)
vexpress-a15         ARM Versatile Express for Cortex-A15
vexpress-a9          ARM Versatile Express for Cortex-A9
virt-2.10            QEMU 2.10 ARM Virtual Machine
virt-2.11            QEMU 2.11 ARM Virtual Machine
virt-2.12            QEMU 2.12 ARM Virtual Machine
virt-2.6             QEMU 2.6 ARM Virtual Machine
virt-2.7             QEMU 2.7 ARM Virtual Machine
virt-2.8             QEMU 2.8 ARM Virtual Machine
virt-2.9             QEMU 2.9 ARM Virtual Machine
virt-3.0             QEMU 3.0 ARM Virtual Machine
virt-3.1             QEMU 3.1 ARM Virtual Machine
virt-4.0             QEMU 4.0 ARM Virtual Machine
virt-4.1             QEMU 4.1 ARM Virtual Machine
virt-4.2             QEMU 4.2 ARM Virtual Machine
virt-5.0             QEMU 5.0 ARM Virtual Machine
virt-5.1             QEMU 5.1 ARM Virtual Machine
virt-5.2             QEMU 5.2 ARM Virtual Machine
virt-6.0             QEMU 6.0 ARM Virtual Machine
virt-6.1             QEMU 6.1 ARM Virtual Machine
virt-6.2             QEMU 6.2 ARM Virtual Machine
virt-7.0             QEMU 7.0 ARM Virtual Machine
virt-7.1             QEMU 7.1 ARM Virtual Machine
virt-7.2             QEMU 7.2 ARM Virtual Machine
virt-8.0             QEMU 8.0 ARM Virtual Machine
virt-8.1             QEMU 8.1 ARM Virtual Machine
virt                 QEMU 8.2 ARM Virtual Machine (alias of virt-8.2)
virt-8.2             QEMU 8.2 ARM Virtual Machine
witherspoon-bmc      OpenPOWER Witherspoon BMC (ARM1176)
xilinx-zynq-a9       Xilinx Zynq Platform Baseboard for Cortex-A9
yosemitev2-bmc       Facebook YosemiteV2 BMC (ARM1176)
z2                   Zipit Z2 (PXA27x)

$ .../qemu-arm/bin/qemu-system-arm -cpu help
Available CPUs:
  arm1026
  arm1136
  arm1136-r2
  arm1176
  arm11mpcore
  arm926
  arm946
  cortex-a15
  cortex-a7
  cortex-a8
  cortex-a9
  cortex-m0
  cortex-m3
  cortex-m33
  cortex-m4
  cortex-m55
  cortex-m7
  cortex-r5
  cortex-r52
  cortex-r5f
  max
  pxa250
  pxa255
  pxa260
  pxa261
  pxa262
  pxa270-a0
  pxa270-a1
  pxa270
  pxa270-b0
  pxa270-b1
  pxa270-c0
  pxa270-c5
  sa1100
  sa1110
  ti925t

$ .../qemu-system-aarch64 -cpu help
Available CPUs:
  a64fx
  arm1026
  arm1136
  arm1136-r2
  arm1176
  arm11mpcore
  arm926
  arm946
  cortex-a15
  cortex-a35
  cortex-a53
  cortex-a55
  cortex-a57
  cortex-a7
  cortex-a710
  cortex-a72
  cortex-a76
  cortex-a8
  cortex-a9
  cortex-m0
  cortex-m3
  cortex-m33
  cortex-m4
  cortex-m55
  cortex-m7
  cortex-r5
  cortex-r52
  cortex-r5f
  max
  neoverse-n1
  neoverse-n2
  neoverse-v1
  pxa250
  pxa255
  pxa260
  pxa261
  pxa262
  pxa270-a0
  pxa270-a1
  pxa270
  pxa270-b0
  pxa270-b1
  pxa270-c0
  pxa270-c5
  sa1100
  sa1110
  ti925t

Legacy​

The qemu-system-gnuarmeclipse binary is now deprecated, and is kept only for compatibility reasons.

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:
  BluePill             BluePill STM32F103C8T6
  Maple                LeafLab Arduino-style STM32 microcontroller board (r5)
  NUCLEO-F072RB        ST Nucleo Development Board for STM32 F072 devices
  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 line
  STM32F051-Discovery  ST Discovery kit for STM32F051 line
  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
  STM32F407VGTx
  STM32F407ZG
  STM32F411RE
  STM32F429ZI
  STM32F429ZITx
caution

In this old release, support for hardware floating point on Cortex-M4 devices is not available.

Bug fixes​

  • none

Enhancements​

  • none

Known problems​

  • for qemu-system-gnuarmeclipse, Ctrl-C does not interrupt the execution if the --nographic option is used
  • in order to build on macOS 10.13, the x64 macOS version has some functionality related to bridged virtual interfaces disabled.

Documentation​

The original documentation is available on-line:

Build​

The binaries for all supported platforms (Windows, macOS and GNU/Linux) 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.

For the prerequisites and more details on the build procedure, please see the Maintainer Info page.

CI tests​

Before publishing, a set of simple tests were performed on an exhaustive set of platforms. The results are available from:

Tests​

The binaries were testes on Windows 10 Pro (x64), Ubuntu 18 LTS (x64), macOS 10.15 (x64) and 11.6 (arm64).

For qemu-system-arm and qemu-system-aarch64, the tests consist in simple, non-graphical, semihosting apps. The binaries are borrowed from µTest++ and are available from the tests folder.

.../xpack-qemu-arm-6.2.0-1/bin/qemu-system-arm --version
xPack QEMU emulator version 6.2.0 (v6.2.0-1-xpack-arm)
Copyright (c) 2003-2021 Fabrice Bellard and the QEMU Project developers

mkdir -p ~/Downloads
(cd ~/Downloads; curl -L --fail -o mps2-an386-sample-test.elf \
https://github.com/xpack-dev-tools/qemu-arm-xpack/raw/xpack/tests/mps2-an386-sample-test.elf)

.../xpack-qemu-arm-6.2.0-1/bin/qemu-system-arm \
--machine mps2-an386 \
--kernel ~/Downloads/mps2-an386-sample-test.elf \
--nographic \
-d unimp,guest_errors \
--semihosting-config enable=on,target=native,arg=sample-test,arg=one,arg=two
...

For qemu-system-gnuarmeclipse, 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 platforms where Eclipse is not available, the binaries were tested by manually starting the blinky test on the emulated STM32F4DISCOVERY board.

.../qemu-system-gnuarmeclipse --version
xPack 64-bit QEMU emulator version 2.8.0 (v2.8.0-14-xpack-legacy-dirty)
Copyright (c) 2003-2016 Fabrice Bellard and the QEMU Project developers

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)

.../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 5
...

DISPLAY=:1.0 .../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 5
...

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:

81ac4b5a39726f7cdfe39c08ae40653696ba14c3c971f756b78858e62287271b
xpack-qemu-arm-8.2.2-1-darwin-arm64.tar.gz

6140f5281f2a2963bf530122c8d1df9d4406aae32ddcbaa6ffe24af0af0c0f05
xpack-qemu-arm-8.2.2-1-darwin-x64.tar.gz

f87eccd7883653162fa93e0f44198107983a3633bc2321d180929e82c5c96cb5
xpack-qemu-arm-8.2.2-1-linux-arm.tar.gz

146d4d34bf0084c1c23e260f2f373b8120dc6a3c716478988398f6f37c7ca35b
xpack-qemu-arm-8.2.2-1-linux-arm64.tar.gz

ed3f322aa72d0dc062b51ca0eef9272c30e4252b979762c9037db6d60c456fb1
xpack-qemu-arm-8.2.2-1-linux-x64.tar.gz

f23a4c5f11c3a153b614c438a96fa136303d194ae8deecc7e07b1b4249518a72
xpack-qemu-arm-8.2.2-1-win32-x64.zip

Deprecation notices​

GNU/Linux minimum requirements​

The minimum requirement is GLIBC 2.27, available starting with Ubuntu 18, Debian 10 and RedHat 8. Support for RedHat 7 was dropped in 2022.

32-bit support​

Support for 32-bit x86 GNU/Linux and x86 Windows was dropped in 2022.

Pre-deprecation notice for 32-bit Arm GNU/Linux​

Due to the large user base of 32-bit Raspberry Pi systems, Support for 32-bit Arm GNU/Linux (armv7l) will be preserved for a little while, but expect it to be dropped by 2025, so it is recommended to consider an upgrade to a RPi 4 or 5 with at least 4 GB (preferably 8 GB) of RAM.

Pre-deprecation notice for Ubuntu 18.04​

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver reached the end of the standard five-year maintenance window for Long-Term Support (LTS) release on 31 May 2023.

As a courtesy, the xPack GNU/Linux releases will continue to be based on Ubuntu 18.04 for another year.

From 2025 onwards, the GNU/Linux binaries will be built on Debian 10, (GLIBC 2.28), and are also expected to run on RedHat 8.

Users are urged to update their build and test infrastructure to ensure a smooth transition to the next xPack releases.

Download analytics​

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