Re: [Qemu-discuss] Problem booting arm images

[Peter Maydell]

On 18 September 2014 10:13, Tony Lapointe <address@hidden> wrote:
> Hi List,
>
> I am using qemu on gentoo, trying to boot arm based images but, i am
> facing some issues.
>
> With qemu-system-arm, i am unable to boot with a kernel that i have
> compiled myself (with crossdev) but the same kernel boot just fine on a
> raspberry PI board. I am also unable to boot the latest raspbian kernel
> with qemu-system-arm. But, i am able to boot with a kernel found over
> here :
>
> http://xecdesign.com/qemu-emulating-raspberry-pi-the-easy-way/
> http://xecdesign.com/downloads/linux-qemu/kernel-qemu
>
> Here is the result of my tests so far.
>
> With my own compiled kernel :
>
> # qemu-system-arm -kernel boot/gentoo.img -cpu arm1176 -m 256 -M
> versatilepb -no-reboot -serial stdio -append "root=/dev/sda5
> rootfstype=ext4 rw init=/bin/bash console=ttyAMA0" -hda
> img/ArchLinuxARM-2014.06-rpi.img
> audio: Could not init `oss' audio driver
> VNC server running on `::1:5900'

You're trying to boot a kernel on QEMU's model of a "versatilepb"
board. This is different hardware from a raspberryPi and you
shouldn't expect a Pi kernel to boot on it. ARM is not like x86:
all ARM boards differ significantly and unless the kernel has
had support for the correct board compiled into it then it will
not start.

Since the xecdesign kernel works you should start with the
kernel config they are using, not with a raspberrypi kernel.
(It might be possible to build a kernel with support for
both boards at once, but that depends on the kernel code
for both boards having been updated to support multiplatform
kernel configs; I don't know whether that's happened yet.
In any case it's not a big deal to use the right kernel for
the right board IMHO.)

thanks
-- PMM