Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[noryb009]

Instead of a ARM based puppy with specially built packages, could we find a X86 emulator for ARM and work with that? It won't be as fast, but it would be much easier and could be done quickly.

[nooby]

good suggestion but an emulator is not like a virtual thing is it because that would sandbox you so you see nothing of the arm thing at all?

But it would allow you to boot up puppy from within and then use the wifi to go out on internet and that is cool. But what else would it allow?

Sorry if I am too naive. We need to search for emulator for exactly the Arm for the device we own. I ahve two smartphones with ARM on them but they use a non rooted Android OS. So one are locked out from booting the emulator unless the SDK? could make it installed?

[noryb009]

I'm thinking a minimal QEMU/virtual box OS that gives puppy full wifi, ports, file system, etc access. I'm not sure if this can be done, though.

[nooby]

Hey maybe good news here?

Put this in google search bar

QEMU for ARM processors

I saw several intersting entries.

[gcmartin]

[noryb009]

No, my original idea was to port QEMU to ARM, then run QEMU on the device with puppy in the virtual machine. That way, instead of porting Puppy and all the apps to ARM, we just have to get QEMU working.

[nooby]

[gcmartin]

Thanks @Nooby for shining the flashlight on the real issue. That's is why I proposed idea in post below.

Let me see it this makes sense: QEMU is a package which allows creation of a Virutal MACHINE! To date, most of us who use VMs do so by telling QEMU to create an Virtaul PC where we then boot some OS in that Virtual PC.
It seems that someone had suggested. earlier, that QEMU CAN create a ARM Virtual device (I have NOT verified this though). If so, QEMU would alllow me to use my PC to create a Virtual ARM where I can boot my ARM's OS; say ddwrt for example.

Assuming I can do this, then it is logical that I can build an ARM OS and test it within that Virtual ARM to get it so that it mimics the same operations we see in Puppy Linux.

Once this is done, tested, and ready, I can then...somehow... load this working NEW OS into a real ARM device. And, have some guarantee that it will works.

What do you think.

Reason why you would do it this way, is because ARM CPUs do NOT have the instruction-set, yet, to compete on equal footing with an Intel-AMD or PowerPC CPU. They were initially designed with a reduced instruction-set so to do routing and communications ONLY. And have since been extended to storage devices (NAS), and of late, cell phones and PADs. These are NOT the "floating point" masters on LAN......today. And, up until recently, most (all prior) ARMs have so little memory that they are useless with todays applications; much less General Business OSs.

There may be merit to your idea in this thread. But build an understanding of what you want to accomplish and what you are going to be designing for. Then move forward.

Most of all, you should have a reason. One reason might be "let's see if we can do it?"

All followers of this thread should put their own ideas forth on this.

Hope this helps

[nooby]

Your approach seems good to me but remember me know very little so I trust you grasp this much better than what I do. It soijnds very logical to me. So if that is your dream then go for it. Sounds promising indeed.

[Aitch]

Don't know if any of this will help?

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:e4Mm5NPr0kcJ:www.glomationinc.com/PortingLinuxKernel.pdf+virtual+arm+in+linux%3F&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgIhDj7zlLpFZWut4k1DOkHVmxlxhnxgnDCRhMusoO7C-fjy2zqHuC_Im0GdKCNl83je_SPFdoP_HF9LLu9DpxKIusAIveZbQCQDAsIvwUKTE9yC6HUqESnKYsZqrVu8Dt7nnGA&sig=AHIEtbSsabGGAgK_RoWgL0YVh2cFYPtY5g

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Architectures/ARM

http://www.debian.org/ports/arm/

http://www.ovpworld.org/download_ARM.php

As far as I know Qemu/VMWare/virtualbox/Xen can all run virtual/emulated arm

Qemu needs the accelerator KQemu, and is renowned slow without

http://wiki.qemu.org/KQemu/Doc

AFAIK Xen runs pretty much native speed, as it is fully virtualized hypervisor, whereas the others are paravirtualized

http://xen.org/

Only some virtuals allow host/virtual to communicate/read/write to common disk/networks - I believe Xen does....but I'm at the limit of my knowledge/expertise

Samsung Arm9 developer boards with 1gb nandflash are now c£60/$85 on ebay [China]

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Samsung-S3C2440-ARM9-ARM-Development-Board-/110579908242?pt=BI_Electrical_Equipment_Tools&hash=item19bf137e92

runs qtopia [http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=176144]

an extra £25/$40 gets you 1028x768@70hz vga o/p module
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320635299782&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

It's fun isn't it?

Aitch

[nooby]

Aitch it is fun so you guys wants as many of us as possible to make a emulator that works on our intel? 686 machines but being an emulator it pretends to be ARM and it can be any ARM and one can learn how to make something that have the Puppy thinking built in to it and later when we knows how to we can make a "thing" that loads on the arm and works like Puppy in the end but on cheap Pads and cheap Android Smartphones?

I am not that bright but sure it is fun.

[Ted Dog]

I've been having fun using puppylinux to telnet into my kindle 3. for 138.00 USD its a useful ARM developing platform. It also reads books too! battery built-in. I'm currently working on getting BACON working on it. its Webbrowser does not work with this forum for posting but reading is fine.

What is great is puppylinux has all the right software built in to support the usb network used to telnet into kindle.

so FYI

[Ted Dog]

never mind posting now from within my kindle this site needs javascript I had it on. So everything here works fine.

[nooby]

Ted that is progress indeed. I have always wanted an E-Ink computer.

I have to look it up so I know what I am talking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_paper
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Kindle

[Aitch]

More ARM news

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=496041#496041

Aitch