Hello Robin, >> 1. For a microcontroller which doesn't have any OS support, can QEMU be >> ported without any OS ? >
> On the other hand, if your question could be rephrased as 'I want to add > support for a new microcontroller to qemu but I only want to run "bare-metal" > (not an OS or an application under an OS) software on the model', I think > that is certainly possible. > Yes, this is what I have been looking for. Adding support for a new micro-controller which doesn't support any OS yet. >> 2. Can QEMU be used as a simple instruction set simulator with probably >> gdb support for remote debugging? My guess is this would require a >> bootloader to load the application to run the application program (full >> system emulation mode or just machine emulation if there is something >> like that). If yes, what else can be the blocker to have gdb support? > > IMHO, gdb support if available, is available irrespective of the type and > nature of the software being run on qemu. For example, you can create a > bare-metal application that executes from the reset vector for say, the ARM > or the MIPS models and have gdb support right from the outset. There is no > explicit need for running boot firmware and/or a loader to load an > application program. Not sure if that's what you were after. > My exact requirement is to test a gcc cross-compiler using DejaGnu for a given target (AVR32). While the cross-compiler is ready, there is no simulator. Since there is not much of OS support, I am trying to evaluate if Qemu can still be considered for this purpose. The usage scenario probably goes like this: 1. Qemu-target should be invoked with the application (yes, bare-metal) waiting for some gdb connection. 2. target-gdb is invoked with the same application I am referring to the example given in http://wiki.qemu.org/download/qemu-doc.html#gdb_005fusage : > qemu -s -kernel arch/i386/boot/bzImage -hda root-2.4.20.img -append > "root=/dev/hda" However, in my case kernel image doesn't exist. As to the requirement of bootloader, I need to investigate further as various types of memories (FLASH & SRAM for program and data sections) exist. > This does require system-mode emulation support as opposed to user-mode > emulation for your microcontroller to be implemented. Agreed. System-mode emulation is what is required. Thanks Anitha
