Re: QEMU

[Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@linux-m68k.org>]

On Wed, 18 Oct 2006, Bill Allombert wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 18, 2006 at 03:02:45PM +0200, Kars de Jong wrote:
> > > Generating an exception and just letting the FPU emulator in the kernel
> > > handle it didn't work?
> > 
> > Umm, no, this was user mode emulation. I figured that would be easier to
> > implement (and also more useful for Debian) than full system emulation.
> 
> Not sure about that: a full emulator like aranym can be used much like
> the real hardware and can serve as a buildd, at least in principle,
> without requiring system change.
> 
> The system-call-emulation is faster but the behaviour is special:
> for example qemu will emulate exec("/usr/bin/gcc") by exec("/usr/bin/gcc")
> on the native system and will run the native compiler not the emulated
> one. I did not find an easy work around about that.

It would be nice if it could run a cross-compiler instead. That would give full
speed for compilations, and emulated speed for the other stuff.
I'm afraid that without using cross-compilation, we cannot shave off sufficient
build time for building e.g. kdebase.

BTW, isn't this what was originally done for ia64, before real hardware was
available? I remember attending a presentation about such a system at
Linux-Kongreß in Köln (1997?).

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

						Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
							    -- Linus Torvalds