Pandora Emulator For Pc/linux?

[nonchip]

Hi,
I'd like to know if there is a chance to emulate the pandora's hardware on a linux 32bit PC?
Like vmware or qemu, just not for emulating PC, but pandora.
I think it would help much for ppl who want to test a program without having to put it on SD card, put SD into pandora, ...
best would be when the emulation could use 2 regular directories (on the host) for the 2 virtual SD slots. so one can modify it on-the-fly.

 

[Tom`]

Hi,
I'd like to know if there is a chance to emulate the pandora's hardware on a linux 32bit PC?
Like vmware or qemu, just not for emulating PC, but pandora.
I think it would help much for ppl who want to test a program without having to put it on SD card, put SD into pandora, ...
best would be when the emulation could use 2 regular directories (on the host) for the 2 virtual SD slots. so one can modify it on-the-fly.

There's a qemu version that emulates ARM hardware, and you can certainly build angstrom for that. However, if you aren't actually using anything CPU-specific, there's nothing stopping you from testing things on regular Linux - I don't know about OpenGL ES, though.

 

[Vitel]

There's a qemu version that emulates ARM hardware

Yep, but it works VERY slowly.

 

[shadow.8]

This is rather old but...

http://pandorapress.net/2009/03/11/so-you-want-to-try-angstrom/

 

[nonchip]

could you tell me where to get the sources of angstrom (with the programs running on a new pandora, eg PMenu)?
like all the software that comes with a pandora as sources. because i didn't find a git/svn repo.

 

[mali]

http://pandorawiki.org/Development_Tools

 

[borgqueenx]

any way to really emulate pandora? i mean: set ram memory, CPU speed of the emulator, and XFCE installed and stuff like that.
This will be great to already try to get a feeling of the pandora, and trying to run some homebrew apps and games.

 

[dschroeter]

Apparently there isn't a lot of demand for this, or it's difficult to do. As I understand it, VirtualBox and VMWare can't emulate ARM chips, so we're left with qemu. You can build an Angstrom image from their homepage, but I can't figure out how to run that in qemu like the one posted before. Does anyone know how to do this or have another option for emulation? Thanks in advance - it would give us something to play with besides F5...

 

[GizmoTheGreen]

there was anothert thread with a selfextracting archive with qemu arm and an old build of ångström for pandora.

i want to try out the latest image though!


and qemu is pretty decent fast on my laptop with the accelerator kemu or whatever, i think it uses virtualization stuff from the cpu?

 

[WizardStan]

and qemu is pretty decent fast on my laptop with the accelerator kemu or whatever, i think it uses virtualization stuff from the cpu?

virtualization ("emulating" an x86 on an x86) is going to be a lot faster than emulating different architectures. None of the virtualization features of the CPU will be useful in this case.

 

[efegea]

It's more easy to just share the files from your pc to the pandora using nfs or smb, either by wifi or network over usb. That's how I did test my applications on my GP2X First Edition (smb+network over usb+telnet)

 

[dschroeter]

@efegea : Right, but most of us don't have Pandoras yet. The request is for a way to emulate/virtualize the Pandora now, to begin testing the browser / themes / packages before it arrives.

 

[efegea]

I know, but the first post said it was for people to test without having to copy the file on the SD, insert the SD on the Pandora...

 

[skeezix]

Few really want to bang right on the actual hardware, most will use SDL etc. In which case you can set up a small X11 nested server say, or set up a VM as others have suggested. Use an x86 VM even in vmware/virtualbox/etc .. the CPU arch doesn't really matter to most people and certainly doesn't matter at all to theming or seeing how apps work at various resoutions, testing various window managers, etc. If your app uses SDL or other standards, you're game too.

Its really only a problem for people who want to "echo foo > /sys/device" that only works on pandora, or fiddling with pandora ioctl's, etc. But again, most people don't likely need to do it.

(I'm going to use SDL myself for my stuff, unless it happens to perform poorly (which is does not!); in which case more work can go into SDL, or you can go to the metal.. but things run pretty damned snappy on the Panda, even with SDL, so not too worried myself.)

For my pandora dev, I use an x86 VM, and then do the ARM build and try on the Panda dev pcb I have (I still use the mk2 red one.)

jeff

 

[nonchip]

I know, but the first post said it was for people to test without having to copy the file on the SD, insert the SD on the Pandora...

just to make clear: i also don't have a pandora yet

i know it would be possible to use nfs/sshfs/smb/whatever, but i think it would be much easier if one could run programs in a pandora VM, eg. if you try to find some bug in pandora specific code that you can't run on PC, but dont always want to boot the pandora for just testing one code line change...
yes, pandora is great, but i think it would be easier to run some tests on PC.
or imagine you need live RAM dump or even PC<->Pandora clipboard (without synergy).


Oh, @skeezix: If I program for pandora, I think I also want to use pandora specific functions, not only SDL.
oh and in Linux, your device nodes are in /dev, not /sys/...

 

[fearofshorts]

Just as a quick reminder to some of the more confused people:
When you use a VM program, it uses VISUALIZATION. This is not at all the same as EMULATION.
Basically, VM programs allow you to run an OS designed for the same architecture (don't correct me, this is the simplistic explaination). The Pandora uses ARM while PCs, Macs and Linux boxes use X86. Therefore you cannot use visualization to run a copy of the Pandora OS (Aangstorm with some additions), leaving only emulation.

Now think- how much power does it take to emulate a Playstation 2? It requires a new, dual or quad-core computer with an amazing graphics card- to run games slowly!
Now, what is the Playstation 2's clock speed? 299 MHz. And what is the Pandora's? 600 MHz+.
See the difficulty?

I'm not saying it's impossible (clock speeds being a poor indicator for system power) and I'm not saying it won't run. I just want people to keep in mind how difficult it is for the poor coders of qemu and not to take their program for granted.

 

[Yoyobuae]

WARNING!!! THIS POST SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY.

[...]
yes, pandora is great, but i think it would be easier to run some tests on PC.
or imagine you need live RAM dump or even PC<->Pandora clipboard (without synergy).

Real programers only need terminal access. SSH is more than enough.

Live RAM dump? That's what core files are for. Clipboard? X selection and/or screen copy/paste is enough. Code editing? Vim works perfectly over the terminal. What else could your probably need?

The only things Pandora lacks directly are a keyboard, a bigger/higher resolution screen and maybe a quick CPU to compile faster.

 

[dflemstr]

When you use a VM program, it uses VISUALIZATION. This is not at all the same as EMULATION.

Dude. Virtualization, not visualization.

Otherwise, you're mostly right.

If someone wants to "try out the look and feel of the Pandora", it is perfectly possible to just build an i386 of Ångström and use that. Then you *can* use virtualization.

 

[WizardStan]

Real programers only need terminal access. SSH is more than enough.

Real programmers only need a UART port. Tapping out their programs one bit at a time at 300 baud is more than enough.

 

[dflemstr]

Real programers only need terminal access. SSH is more than enough.

Real programmers only need a UART port. Tapping out their programs one bit at a time at 300 baud is more than enough.

Excuse me, but
real programmers use butterflies.