Emulating the XO/UsingVMware

Current status

• http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/917 pcnet32 and snd-intel8x0 have been included in the kernel as modules (08/21/07).
• http://blog.vrplumber.com/1923 542 works in VMWare with pcnet32 driver.
• http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/community-news/2007-July/000066.html Item 9, second paragraph.
• http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/olpc-chicago/2007-June/000053.html
• I've heard "the ISO images worked somewhat better for me than the converted .img files, but I don't know why" MitchellNCharity 13:06, 6 July 2007 (EDT)

VMware Player

Linux / Windows

Warning

For easy-to-use operation, you probably want to use Qemu, which is known to work on all of Linux, Win32 and Mac. Most recent builds do not support VMWare due to the lack of a pcnet32 network driver. See [[1]]. There are Developer Images available which are built on top of regular desktop environments and provide basically all drivers as well as a reasonable development environment, but in a much larger download (900MB+).

VMware Player is another convenient way to test the image on your Linux / Windows machine. You can convert an image to a VMware virtual disk file with the qemu-img command from the QEMU distribution.

$ qemu-img convert olpc-stream-development-59-20060808_1153-rpm-ext3.img  -O vmdk olpc.vmdk

Additionally, you need a config file to run the virtual disk. Here is an example (save it as olpc.vmx).

#!/usr/bin/vmware
config.version = "8"
virtualHW.version = "3"
memsize = "128"
ide0:0.present = "TRUE"
ide0:0.fileName = "olpc.vmdk"
ide1:0.present = "TRUE"
ide1:0.fileName = "/dev/cdrom"
ide1:0.deviceType = "atapi-cdrom"
floppy0.fileName = "A:"
ethernet0.present = "TRUE"
ethernet0.connectionType = "nat"
usb.present = "TRUE"
sound.present = "TRUE"
sound.virtualDev = "es1371"
displayName = "OLPC"
guestOS = "other26xlinux"

ethernet0.addressType = "generated"
uuid.location = "56 4d d1 99 5c 64 a3 6f-ef c7 aa 86 a8 cc ed 46"
uuid.bios = "56 4d d1 99 5c 64 a3 6f-ef c7 aa 86 a8 cc ed 46"
tools.remindInstall = "TRUE"
ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:cc:ed:46"
ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0"

checkpoint.vmState = "olpc.vmss"

ide0:0.redo = ""

Start VMWare Player, open this .vmx file. Allow VMWare to create a new UUID.

Note: Make sure the emulator starts the 'OLPC for qemu target'.

Mac OSX

• Unzip the package and double click OLPC.VDMK

• More at http://www.edgargonzalez.com/2006/11/21/emulating-the-olpc-xo-on-a-mac-osx/

This package seems to be gone. Suggestions?

• It should worked with the livecd sdk. Download it from the downloads section. No need for the OLPC.VDMK if you run the livecd.

Windows

• Tuttle on VMWare on Windows

Notes moved from Talk:OS_images_for_emulation

OLPC builds since around the start of December 2006 do not include any network drivers compatible with VMware. You can still convert a qemu image to VMware and run it, but you will not be able to connect to any external network. Duncanb 04:16, 11 January 2007 (EST)

Changed the VMWare/Windows text to Linux, as the commands and structure shown are clearly not Windows based. Maybe someone who uses VMWare on Windows should post the correct steps for that OS.

This IS the correct step for Windows.