The recommended method is via xpm.

Overview

The xPack QEMU Arm can be installed automatically, via xpm (the recommended method), or manually, by downloading and unpacking one of the portable archives.

Easy install

The easiest way to install QEMU is by using the binary xPack, available as @xpack-dev-tools/qemu from the npmjs.com registry.

Prerequisites

The only requirement is a recent xpm, which is a portable Node.js command line application. To install it, follow the instructions from the xpm install page.

Install

With xpm available, installing the latest version of the package is quite easy:

cd my-project
xpm init # Only at first use.

xpm install @xpack-dev-tools/qemu-arm@latest --verbose

This command will always install the latest available version, in the global xPacks store, which is a platform dependent folder (check the output of the xpm command for the actual folder used on your platform).

xPacks aware tools, like the Eclipse Embedded CDT plug-ins automatically identify binaries installed with xpm and provide a convenient method to manage paths.

Uninstall

To remove the links from the current project:

cd my-project

xpm uninstall @xpack-dev-tools/qemu-arm

To completely remove the package from the central xPacks store:

xpm uninstall --global @xpack-dev-tools/qemu-arm --verbose

Manual install

For all platforms, the xPack QEMU Arm binaries are released as portable archives that can be installed in any location.

The archives can be downloaded from the GitHub Releases pages.

Download

The Windows versions of xPack QEMU Arm are packed as ZIP files. Download the latest version named like:

  • xpack-qemu-arm-7.0.0-1-win32-x64.zip

Unpack

To manually install the xPack QEMU Arm, unpack the archive and copy it into the %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\xPacks\qemu-arm (for example C:\Users\ilg\AppData\Roaming\xPacks\qemu-arm) folder; according to Microsoft, AppData\Roaming is the recommended location for installing user specific packages.

Test

To check if the manually installed QEMU starts, use something like:

C:\>%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\xPacks\qemu-arm\xpack-qemu-arm-7.0.0-1\bin\qemu-system-gnuarmeclipse.exe" --version
xPack QEMU emulator version 7.0.0 (v7.0.0-xpack)
Copyright (c) 2003-2022 Fabrice Bellard and the QEMU Project developers

Drivers

For usual Cortex-M emulation, there are no special drivers required.

Download

The macOS versions of xPack QEMU Arm are packed as .tar.gz archives. Download the latest version named like:

  • xpack-qemu-arm-7.0.0-1-darwin-x64.tar.gz
  • xpack-qemu-arm-7.0.0-1-darwin-arm64.tar.gz

Unpack

To manually install the xPack QEMU Arm, unpack the archive and move it to ~/.local/xPacks/qemu-arm/xpack-qemu-arm-7.0.0-1:

mkdir -p ~/.local/xPacks/qemu-arm
cd ~/.local/xPacks/qemu-arm

tar xvf ~/Downloads/xpack-qemu-arm-7.0.0-1-darwin-x64.tar.gz
chmod -R -w xpack-qemu-arm-7.0.0-1

The result is a structure like:

$ tree -L 2 /Users/ilg/.local/xPacks/qemu-arm/xpack-qemu-arm-7.0.0-1
/Users/ilg/.local/xPacks/qemu-arm/xpack-qemu-arm-7.0.0-1/
├── README.md
├── bin
│   ├── qemu-system-aarch64
│   ├── qemu-system-arm
│   └── qemu-system-gnuarmeclipse
├── distro-info
│   ├── CHANGELOG.md
│   ├── licenses
│   ├── patches
│   └── scripts
├── include
│   └── qemu-plugin.h
├── libexec
│   ├── libSDL2-2.0.0.dylib
│   ├── libSDL2_image-2.0.0.dylib
│   ├── libcrypto.1.1.dylib
│   ├── libffi.8.dylib
│   ├── libgio-2.0.0.dylib
│   ├── libglib-2.0.0.dylib
│   ├── libgmodule-2.0.0.dylib
│   ├── libgobject-2.0.0.dylib
│   ├── libgthread-2.0.0.dylib
│   ├── libiconv.2.dylib
│   ├── libintl.8.dylib
│   ├── libjpeg.9.dylib
│   ├── liblzo2.2.dylib
│   ├── libncursesw.6.dylib
│   ├── libnettle.8.4.dylib
│   ├── libnettle.8.dylib -> libnettle.8.4.dylib
│   ├── libpixman-1.0.40.0.dylib
│   ├── libpixman-1.0.dylib -> libpixman-1.0.40.0.dylib
│   ├── libpng16.16.dylib
│   ├── libssh.4.8.7.dylib
│   ├── libssh.4.dylib -> libssh.4.8.7.dylib
│   ├── libusb-1.0.0.dylib
│   ├── libvdeplug.3.dylib
│   ├── libz.1.2.12.dylib
│   ├── libz.1.dylib -> libz.1.2.12.dylib
│   ├── libzstd.1.5.2.dylib
│   └── libzstd.1.dylib -> libzstd.1.5.2.dylib
└── share
    ├── applications
    ├── icons
    ├── legacy
    └── qemu

12 directories, 33 files

Test

To check if the manually installed QEMU starts, use something like:

$ ~/.local/xPacks/qemu-arm/xpack-qemu-arm-7.0.0-1/bin/qemu-system-gnuarmeclipse --version
xPack QEMU emulator version 7.0.0 (v7.0.0-xpack)
Copyright (c) 2003-2022 Fabrice Bellard and the QEMU Project developers

Download

The GNU/Linux versions of xPack QEMU Arm are packed as .tar.gz archives. Download the latest version named like:

  • xpack-qemu-arm-7.0.0-1-linux-x64.tar.gz
  • xpack-qemu-arm-7.0.0-1-linux-arm.tar.gz
  • xpack-qemu-arm-7.0.0-1-linux-arm64.tar.gz

As the name implies, these are GNU/Linux tar.gz archives; they were build on Ubuntu, but can be executed on most recent GNU/Linux distributions.

Unpack

To manually install the xPack QEMU Arm, unpack the archive and move it to ~/.local/xPacks/qemu-arm/xpack-qemu-arm-7.0.0-1:

mkdir -p ~/.local/xPacks/qemu-arm
cd ~/.local/xPacks/qemu-arm

tar xvf ~/Downloads/xpack-qemu-arm-7.0.0-1-linux-x64.tar.gz
chmod -R -w xpack-qemu-arm-7.0.0-1

The result is a structure like:

$ tree -L 2 '/home/ilg/.local/xPacks/qemu-arm/xpack-qemu-arm-7.0.0-1'
/home/ilg/.local/xPacks/qemu-arm/xpack-qemu-arm-7.0.0-1/
├── bin
│   ├── qemu-system-aarch64
│   ├── qemu-system-arm
│   └── qemu-system-gnuarmeclipse
├── distro-info
│   ├── CHANGELOG.md
│   ├── licenses
│   ├── patches
│   └── scripts
├── include
│   └── qemu-plugin.h
├── libexec
│   ├── libatomic.so.1 -> libatomic.so.1.2.0
│   ├── libatomic.so.1.2.0
│   ├── libcrypto.so.1.1
│   ├── libffi.so.8 -> libffi.so.8.1.0
│   ├── libffi.so.8.1.0
│   ├── libgcc_s.so.1
│   ├── libgio-2.0.so.0 -> libgio-2.0.so.0.5600.4
│   ├── libgio-2.0.so.0.5600.4
│   ├── libglib-2.0.so.0 -> libglib-2.0.so.0.5600.4
│   ├── libglib-2.0.so.0.5600.4
│   ├── libgmodule-2.0.so.0 -> libgmodule-2.0.so.0.5600.4
│   ├── libgmodule-2.0.so.0.5600.4
│   ├── libgobject-2.0.so.0 -> libgobject-2.0.so.0.5600.4
│   ├── libgobject-2.0.so.0.5600.4
│   ├── libgthread-2.0.so.0 -> libgthread-2.0.so.0.5600.4
│   ├── libgthread-2.0.so.0.5600.4
│   ├── libiconv.so.2 -> libiconv.so.2.6.1
│   ├── libiconv.so.2.6.1
│   ├── libjpeg.so.9 -> libjpeg.so.9.5.0
│   ├── libjpeg.so.9.5.0
│   ├── liblzo2.so.2 -> liblzo2.so.2.0.0
│   ├── liblzo2.so.2.0.0
│   ├── libncursesw.so.6 -> libncursesw.so.6.3
│   ├── libncursesw.so.6.3
│   ├── libnettle.so.8 -> libnettle.so.8.4
│   ├── libnettle.so.8.4
│   ├── libpixman-1.so.0 -> libpixman-1.so.0.40.0
│   ├── libpixman-1.so.0.40.0
│   ├── libpng16.so.16 -> libpng16.so.16.37.0
│   ├── libpng16.so.16.37.0
│   ├── libresolv-2.27.so
│   ├── libresolv.so.2 -> libresolv-2.27.so
│   ├── libSDL2-2.0.so.0 -> libSDL2-2.0.so.0.22.0
│   ├── libSDL2-2.0.so.0.22.0
│   ├── libSDL2_image-2.0.so.0 -> libSDL2_image-2.0.so.0.2.3
│   ├── libSDL2_image-2.0.so.0.2.3
│   ├── libssh.so.4 -> libssh.so.4.8.7
│   ├── libssh.so.4.8.7
│   ├── libssp.so.0 -> libssp.so.0.0.0
│   ├── libssp.so.0.0.0
│   ├── libstdc++.so.6 -> libstdc++.so.6.0.29
│   ├── libstdc++.so.6.0.29
│   ├── libusb-1.0.so.0 -> libusb-1.0.so.0.3.0
│   ├── libusb-1.0.so.0.3.0
│   ├── libvdeplug.so.3 -> libvdeplug.so.3.0.1
│   ├── libvdeplug.so.3.0.1
│   ├── libz.so.1 -> libz.so.1.2.12
│   ├── libz.so.1.2.12
│   ├── libzstd.so.1 -> libzstd.so.1.5.2
│   ├── libzstd.so.1.5.2
│   └── qemu-bridge-helper
├── README.md
└── share
    ├── applications
    ├── icons
    ├── legacy
    └── qemu

12 directories, 57 files

Test

To check if the manually installed QEMU starts, use something like:

$ ~/.local/xPacks/qemu-arm/xpack-qemu-arm-7.0.0-1/bin/qemu-system-gnuarmeclipse --version
xPack QEMU emulator version 7.0.0 (v7.0.0-xpack)
Copyright (c) 2003-2022 Fabrice Bellard and the QEMU Project developers

UDEV & Drivers

For usual Cortex-M emulation, there are no special UDEV definitions or drivers required.