HCL:VersatileExpress

The Versatile Express is ARM's development platform for early bringup of new core designs. It is also a popular platform to be used with QEMU to emulate an ARM environment on non-ARM hardware.

There is no vexpress images with Tumbleweed and Leap anymore.
If you want to run openSUSE in QEMU, you should follow instructions on the following page: openSUSE:AArch64#QEMU.

Technical Data

• Cortex A9 or A15 Core
• AMBA bus for device access
• Serial port
• Ethernet

Installing the openSUSE 12.2 Image with QEMU

1. Download the latest image files at http://download.opensuse.org/ports/armv7hl/distribution/openSUSE-stable/images/ and choose between:
   1. JeOS image for a minimal system openSUSE-12.2-ARM-JeOS-vexpress-*.raw.xz and openSUSE-12.2-ARM-JeOS-vexpress-*.tar.bz2 or
   2. XFCE image for a graphical system openSUSE-12.2-ARM-XFCE-vexpress-*.raw.xz and openSUSE-12.2-ARM-XFCE-vexpress-*.raw.xz
2. Extract the disk image.

    xz -d [image].raw.xz 

3. Append a zero beyond the end of the image to make space for data.

    dd if=/dev/zero of=[image].raw bs=1 count=1 seek=20G 

4. Extract the kernel archive.

    tar xvjf [image].tar.bz2 

5. Run QEMU with the respective parameters to run the image

    qemu-system-arm -M vexpress-a9 -m 1G -drive file=[image].raw,if=sd -serial stdio -kernel initrd*kernel -initrd initrd*h.gz -append console=tty 

6. Walk through the first boot steps on the graphical console.
7. Have a lot of fun...

Known Issues

• Xorg doesn't work in QEMU