Versatile Express – QEMU

Introduction

Versatile Express is a reference platform from ARM. Codezero Team has developed the QEMU platform support for it and contributed it to be included in mainline Qemu. This page covers how to build a minimal virtualized Linux system on QEMU / Versatile Express emulation.

Instructions

Download the source code:

$ git clone https://github.com/b-labs/codezero-meta.git
$ cd codezero-meta
$ git clone https://github.com/b-labs/codezero.git
$ git clone https://github.com/b-labs/linux.git
$ git clone https://github.com/b-labs/linux-extras.git

Choose Linux Configuration

For Linux with plain initramfs

Load the vx-single-initramfs meta-config and (optionally) configure the setup

$ ./config-load.sh vx-single-initramfs
$ make menuconfig # optional

For Linaro Linux

Make sure you use matching linux branch:

$ cd linux
$ git checkout linaro-11.12
$ cd ..

Load the one of the:

• vx-linaro-11.11-alip – ARM Linux Internet Platform
• vx-linaro-11.12-nano – Commandline Linux on framebuffer
• vx-linaro-11.12-ubuntu – Linaro Ubuntu distribution

meta-configs like this:

$ ./config-load.sh vx-linaro-11.11-alip

This step will attempt to download and build the required Linaro FS for you if you haven’t already done it manually using tools/download-fs.sh script.

Build:

$ make

In two separate terminals launch:

$ ./tools/debug-serial.sh

and:

$ ./tools/debug.sh

On the second one type continue and press ENTER.

Screenshots

Virtualized Linaro ALIP system running inside QEMU:

Virtualized Linaro Ubuntu system running inside Qemu: