OS Builder/Run under emulation

Purpose: bootstrapping XO-4 to Fedora 20 using QEMU.

Outcome: a .zd file for installation.

Ingredients

• an XO-4, the target,
• a conventional 32-bit or 64-bit computer running Ubuntu 14.04, the host,
• a USB drive.

Recipe

• install needed tools on the host,

apt-get install qemu-system-arm libguestfs-tools

• download the armhfp Fedora 20 Minimal image, from https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Architectures/ARM/F20/Installation#For_Versatile_Express_Emulation_with_QEMU

wget http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/fedora/linux/releases/20/Images/armhfp/Fedora-Minimal-armhfp-20-1-sda.raw.xz

• extract the kernel and initramfs from the image,

sudo virt-copy-out -a Fedora-Minimal-armhfp-20-1-sda.raw \
   /boot/vmlinuz-3.11.10-301.fc20.armv7hl .
sudo virt-copy-out -a Fedora-Minimal-armhfp-20-1-sda.raw \
   /boot/initramfs-3.11.10-301.fc20.armv7hl.img .

• resize the disk image

qemu-img resize Fedora-Minimal-armhfp-20-1-sda.raw +10G

• boot the emulated system,

sudo qemu-system-arm -machine vexpress-a9 -m 1024 -nographic \
   -net nic -net user \
   -append "console=ttyAMA0,115200n8 rw root=/dev/mmcblk0p3 rootwait physmap.enabled=0" \
   -kernel vmlinuz-3.11.10-301.fc20.armv7hl \
   -initrd initramfs-3.11.10-301.fc20.armv7hl.img \
   -sd Fedora-Minimal-armhfp-20-1-sda.raw

• complete the Fedora guided installation,
• grow the filesystem to fit the disk image,

sudo resize2fs /dev/mmcblk0p3

• follow OS_Builder/Run_on_XO_hardware to make a minimal build.