Emulating the XO: Difference between revisions
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<< [[Developers/Setup]] |
<< [[Developers/Setup]] |
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In the past, OLPC produced alternative software images which could be run in emulators such as QEMU and VMWare. This meant that development and testing could happen to a limited extent without requiring an XO laptop. However, these images had limitations and were a drain on resources to produce and maintain. |
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[[Image:AP1_39.jpg|thumb|laptop-in-laptop]] |
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'''Emulation-capable images are currently not available.''' However, XOs are readily available to trusted contributors through the [[Contributors program]]. |
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Emulators and Virtual Servers allow you to run a "virtual" computer on any machine. |
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[http://sugarlabs.org Sugar], the unique user interface of the XO laptops, is now distributed as a generic software project and can be easily installed, developed and tested on "regular" computers as well as XOs. See [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Downloads SugarLabs Downloads] for the full range of options. |
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Strictly speaking, with emulators it is not usually a specific system that is emulated but a generic x86 processor with [[Sugar]], so this emulation has some limits. The customized devices on an XO cannot be emulated, and some peripherals in your PC may not be supported through the emulated XO. |
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Emulators convert the code written/compiled for a particular system to the host computer's architecture. Virtualisation Servers differ from Emulation by that the code doesn't have to be converted; they run the operating system on the host CPU. Virtualisation is much faster than an emulator because of this. |
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* For configuration and Usage, see our [[Emulating the XO/Quick Start|quick start]] and [[How to set up for development on linux emulation|emulation on Linux guide]]. |
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** For a detailed tutorial on emulation, see the [http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-sugar-olpc/index.html IBM Tutorial]. |
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** Operating-specific details are available : [[Emulating_the_XO/Quick_Start/Windows|Win]] [[Emulating_the_XO/Quick_Start/Mac|Mac]] [[Emulating_the_XO/Quick_Start/Linux|Linux]] |
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** For tweaks to your system, see [[Improving emulation]]. |
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* For a comparison of environments and operating systems on which each have been tested, see [[Emulating the XO/Comparison of Alternatives|Comparison of Alternatives]] |
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See the [[Developers/Setup#Emulation Packages/Products|Developer's Manual]] for a discussion of the merits of various packages and the ways you might want to use emulation in the development process. Keep in mind that emulation is [[Emulating the XO/Limitations of XO disk images|NOT perfect]]. |
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== Emulators == |
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At present, [[QEMU]] is used most frequently. It is both an Emulator and a Virtual Server, and runs on many operating systems. |
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: If you are running Linux, there is an ''experimental'' [[olpc-xo-qemu]] to simplify using QEMU for emulation. Feedback encouraged. [[User:MitchellNCharity|MitchellNCharity]] 15:03, 6 January 2008 (EST) |
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: If you are running Windows, there is an ''experimental'' [[Emulating_the_XO/Quick_Start/Windows|Windows installer]] to simplify using QEMU for emulation. Feedback encouraged. [[User:Mwarren|Mwarren]] 00:20, 15 November 2008 (UTC) |
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[[VMWare]] is also popular. Bert Freudenberg has created an VMWare image of Release 8.2, Build 767, which he describes in this [http://croquetweak.blogspot.com/2008/12/emulating-latest-stable-olpc-xo.html blog entry]. |
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:For Windows, the first comment on the blog page provides instructions on how the archive may be extracted and used. |
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:This image has also been tested successfully with VMWare Server and Player for Linux. --[[User:FGrose|FGrose]] 07:30, 7 January 2009 (UTC) |
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:For Mac OS X, see this [[Emulating_the_XO/Quick_Start/Mac#Using_VMWare_Fusion | Mac Quick Start tip page]]. |
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=== Release 8.2 and Joyride 2.6.25 kernel-based images require support for AMD's ''3DNow!'' extensions === |
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The 2.6.25 kernel used in the current (Sep 2008) builds checks for the availability |
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of the 3DNow extension and if it does not find it refuses to boot. |
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This makes it impossible to use the current devel-ext3 images under stock QEMU (same for |
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VMWare and probably also for VirtualBox). You need a newer version of QEMU compiled from |
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a recent SVN snapshot which allows to specify a cpu type of athlon with 3DNow support. |
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:(The VMWare image referenced above by Bert avoids the ''3dNow!'' issue because he substituted a stock Fedora kernel.) --[[User:FGrose|FGrose]] 06:22, 11 January 2009 (UTC) |
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qemu from the debian experimental repository already (Nov 2008) supports <tt>-cpu athlon</tt> with 3dnow. |
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: A Windows binary of QEMU compiled from a recent SVN snapshot (svn-4887, 2008-09-24) is available from the [http://n2.nabble.com/Emulating-8.2-images-on-QEMU-for-windows-td1115692.html OLPC forum at Nabble]. More installation details, including libusb0.dll and KQEMU installation, are available on the [[Emulating the XO/Quick Start/Windows]] page. |
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== Build recommendations == |
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For running XO disk images on an emulator, you must use an '''ext3''' image, not the [[JFFS2]] image which is for on-board NAND flash memory. =) |
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Please note that the build you want to run may only be available in [[JFFS2]]; if so, check older builds. |
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Some builds are better than others and the most recent one will not always work. |
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=== OUTDATED status === |
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Please add your own findings to [[User Feedback on Images]]. |
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[http://xs-dev.laptop.org/~cscott/olpc/streams/joyride/ joyride] builds generally work (as of build 1400). |
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Presence service (mesh view and collaboration) won't work by default, because they are configured with a presence service providing jabber server of ship2.jabber.laptop.org, which doesn't yet exist. There is an overloaded and fragile jabber.laptop.org which may be used in the meantime. -- [[User:MitchellNCharity|MitchellNCharity]] 22:42, 14 December 2007 (EST) |
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: Another jabber server alternative is: jabber.xochat.org (typically 60 to 80 people online) --[[User:ixo|ixo]] 03:29, 5 January 2008 (EST) |
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: Please be aware that the xochat.org server is also overloaded, and the load is proportional to the product of the number of registrees times the current number of users, for the reasons documented at [[XMPP_Extensions]]. So don't connect (and thus automatically register) unless you will really be contributing, and/or set up your own ejabberd server. [[User:NealMcBurnett|NealMcBurnett]] 15:39, 7 January 2008 (EST) |
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I've had good luck with all of the ship2 builds under VMware Workstation 6. -- Ed Borasky (Znmeb), 15 December 2007. |
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{{ Latest Releases | livecd = inline | devel = inline | server = inline }} |
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== External links == |
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* [http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-sugar-olpc/index.html#resources Sugar, the XO laptop, and One Laptop per Child], M. Tim Jones. ''developerWorks''. IBM, 2007-04-24. |
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[[Category:OS]] |
[[Category:OS]] |
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Revision as of 15:30, 7 February 2011
| modify |
In the past, OLPC produced alternative software images which could be run in emulators such as QEMU and VMWare. This meant that development and testing could happen to a limited extent without requiring an XO laptop. However, these images had limitations and were a drain on resources to produce and maintain.
Emulation-capable images are currently not available. However, XOs are readily available to trusted contributors through the Contributors program.
Sugar, the unique user interface of the XO laptops, is now distributed as a generic software project and can be easily installed, developed and tested on "regular" computers as well as XOs. See SugarLabs Downloads for the full range of options.