HCL:VersatileExpress

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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