The recommended method is via xpm.

Overview

The xPack QEMU RISC-V 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-riscv 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-riscv@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).

Tip: The install location can be configured using the XPACKS_STORE_FOLDER environment variable; for more details please check the xpm folders page.

Tip: The archive content is unpacked into a folder named .content. On some platforms this might be hidden for normal browsing, and require separate options (like ls -A) or, in file browsers, to enable settings like Show Hidden Files.

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

Important: Automatic path discovery for the packages from the new @xpack-dev-tools scope was added to GNU MCU Eclipse plug-ins with v4.6.1 in 2019-09-23; update older versions or configure the path manually.

Uninstall

To remove the links from the current project:

cd my-project

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

To completely remove the package from the central xPacks store:

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

Manual install

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

The archives can be downloaded from the GitHub Releases pages.

• Windows
• macOS
• GNU/Linux

Download

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

• xpack-qemu-riscv-7.0.0--win32-x64.zip

Note: In case you wonder where the suffix comes from, it is exactly the Node.js process.platform and process.arch. The win32 part is confusing, but we have to live with it.

Unpack

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

Note: For manual installs, the recommended install location is slightly different from the xpm install folders, which use the scope (like @xpack-dev-tools) to group different tools, and .content to store the unpacked archive.

Important: Although perfectly possible to install QEMU in any folder, it is highly recommended to use this path, since by default the Eclipse Embedded CDT debug plug-ins search for the executable in this location.

Test

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

C:\>%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\xPacks\qemu-riscv\xpack-qemu-riscv-7.0.0-\bin\qemu-system-riscv32.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 RISC-V emulation, there are no special drivers required.

Download

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

• xpack-qemu-riscv-7.0.0--darwin-x64.tar.gz
• xpack-qemu-riscv-7.0.0--darwin-arm64.tar.gz

Unpack

To manually install the xPack QEMU RISC-V, unpack the archive and move it to ~/.local/xPacks/qemu-riscv/xpack-qemu-riscv-7.0.0-:

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

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

Note: For manual installs, the recommended install location is different from the xpm install folders.

Important: Although perfectly possible to install QEMU in any folder, it is highly recommended to use this path, since by default the Eclipse Embedded CDT debug plug-ins search for the executable in this location.

The result is a structure like:

$ tree -L 2 /Users/ilg/.local/xPacks/qemu-riscv/xpack-qemu-riscv-7.0.0-
/Users/ilg/.local/xPacks/qemu-riscv/xpack-qemu-riscv-7.0.0-/
├── README.md
├── bin
│   ├── qemu-system-riscv32
│   └── qemu-system-riscv64
├── distro-info
│   ├── CHANGELOG.md
│   ├── licenses
│   ├── patches
│   └── scripts
├── include
│   └── qemu-plugin.h
├── libexec
│   ├── 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
│   ├── 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
    └── qemu

11 directories, 29 files

Test

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

$ ~/.local/xPacks/qemu-riscv/xpack-qemu-riscv-7.0.0-/bin/qemu-system-riscv32 --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 RISC-V are packed as .tar.gz archives. Download the latest version named like:

• xpack-qemu-riscv-7.0.0--linux-x64.tar.gz
• xpack-qemu-riscv-7.0.0--linux-arm.tar.gz
• xpack-qemu-riscv-7.0.0--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 RISC-V, unpack the archive and move it to ~/.local/xPacks/qemu-riscv/xpack-qemu-riscv-7.0.0-:

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

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

Note: For manual installs, the recommended install location is slightly different from the xpm install folders, which use the scope (like @xpack-dev-tools) to group different tools, and .content to store the unpacked archive.

Important: Although perfectly possible to install QEMU in any folder, it is highly recommended to use this path, since by default the Eclipse Embedded CDT debug plug-ins search for the executable in this location.

The result is a structure like:

$ tree -L 2 '/home/ilg/.local/xPacks/qemu-riscv/xpack-qemu-riscv-7.0.0-'
/home/ilg/.local/xPacks/qemu-riscv/xpack-qemu-riscv-7.0.0-/
├── bin
│   ├── qemu-system-riscv32
│   └── qemu-system-riscv64
├── 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
│   ├── 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
│   ├── 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
├── README.md
└── share
    ├── applications
    ├── icons
    └── qemu

11 directories, 51 files

Test

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

$ ~/.local/xPacks/qemu-riscv/xpack-qemu-riscv-7.0.0-/bin/qemu-system-riscv32 --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 RISC-V emulation, there are no special UDEV definitions or drivers required.