Emulating the XO/Quick Start

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Revision as of 15:58, 21 November 2007 by Fhill (talk | contribs) (Qemu invocation on Windows gave me an error - added suggestion for others how to fix.)
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This page will help you get a look at the XO software, by running a "virtual XO" in an emulator. Another option is burning a LiveCd.

What to expect

This "virtual XO" was created as a software development tool. It is not intended for general use, and many things will not work. It is "just to get a taste" (and to help software developers). With time and people constraints, we are focused on the real XO.

  • The camera and video will not work.
  • Things are slower than on the actual machine. If you are unable to install qemu's kqemu accelerator, very much slower.
  • You will see a snapshot of the past. The instructions will have you download the "latest stable build", which is sometimes quite a few weeks old. Development is very rapid. Things will be missing or different compared with the present.
  • While rapidly maturing, this is still "alpha" software.
  • TamTam, the popular music program, will likely not work (no sound).

Four steps

First, download olpc-redhat-stream-development-devel_ext3.img.bz2. It is in this directory.

Second, get the qemu emulator which will run the image:

Third, extract the .img file from the .bz2 file.

Fourth, run: 

  qemu -m 256 -kernel-kqemu -soundhw es1370 -net user -net nic,model=rtl8139 -hda olpc-redhat-stream-development-devel_ext3.img

If qemu responds with an error like "qemu: could not load PC bios '/c/Program Files/Qemu/bios.bin'" then you may have to use qemu's -L option to specify the directory where you installed qemu, which contains the bios.bin file.

Note that qemu by default gives 128 MB RAM, but according to Hardware_specification recent XO HW have 256 MB, that's why the "-m 256". To test for early XO HW (or later with more), change the -m param. Giving 256 MB RAM appears to have a noticeable effect on speed in the emulator (as I'm sure in the real HW ;).

You should now have a running "virtual XO".

Running for the first time

Sugar Instructions will help you get oriented, though you may not need it.

You can also get other Help and tips on emulating Sugar.

When running under emulation, the sugar fonts will appear very tiny until you set the screen to 200 dpi.

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