QEMU Simulator & Symbian Foundation

Johnathan White
Accenture

Copyright © 2009 Accenture. All Rights Reserved. 1

 QEMU Simulator & Symbian
Foundation
Johnathan White SEE October 2009

Copyright © 2009 Accenture. All Rights Reserved. Accenture, its logo, and High Performance Delivered are trademarks of Accenture.
Agenda

•  Simulator Introduction & Architecture

•  Running Simulator

•  Building/Debugging Simulator

•  Simulator Features/Demo

•  GUI environment

•  Questions

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Simulator not Symbian Emulator

•  Existing Symbian Emulator is x86 based

–  Requires entire environment built for x86
–  Requires different tool chain
–  Often doesn’t accurately map hardware leading to
integration issues

•  Simulator is ARM based

–  Single environment and tool chain required
–  Accurate mapping of hardware environment

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What is QEMU ?

•  QEMU is a machine emulator which enables guest

(Symbian) to run on host environment

•  Emulates full hardware platform including CPU and

peripherals

•  QEMU is open source (http://www.qemu.org/)

•  Wide QEMU usage in the industry

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Baseport

•  Symbian baseport (Syborg) required for Symbian

to function on QEMU virtual hardware platform

•  Baseport comprises of ASSP/Variant code as

well drivers and kernel extensions

•  Code above baseport is common between

Simulator and other target hardware

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 Overall Architecture

USER SPACE

EUSER KERNEL SPACE

Symbian
SYBORG BASEPORT

KERNEL NANO ASSP / KERNEL DEVICE

KERNEL VARIANT EXTENSIONS DRIVERS

ARM
SYBORG BOARD MODEL
PERIPHERALS
QEMU BINARY
TRANSLATION

HOST

HOST ENV – Windows, Linux, MAC HOST OS API’s

Host
Hardware

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Simulator – EPL Kernel kit

All “ingredients” required to create and run a basic Symbian image in QEMU are
released under EPL and thus available to all

Pre-compiled Syborg baseport provided (\epoc32\release\armv5\urel &udeb)

Symbian Syborg source code provided (\sf\adaptation\qemu\baseport\syborg)

Binaries Required to create Symbian TextShell Rom Image

Pre-compiled QEMU (\symbian-qemu-0.9.1\bin)

QEMU
QEMU source code provided (\sf\adaptation\qemu\symbian-qemu-0.9.1-12)

QEMU environment compiled for win32 environment

Host

SF Mercurial repo - http://developer.symbian.org/oss/FCL/sf/adaptation/qemu

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QEMU Simulator … its alive !

•  First build a textshell Symbian ROM

Creates debug
textshell ROM
\sf\os\kernelhwsrv\kernel\eka\rombuild> rom -v syborg -i armv5 -b udeb image file

•  Then run ROM image in QEMU

\symbian-qemu-0.9.1\bin> arm-none-symbianelf-qemu-system.exe
-kernel \sf\os\kernelhwsrv\kernel\eka\rombuild\syborgarmv5d.img
-M \sf\adaptation\qemu\baseport\syborg\syborg.dtb
-serial COM2 Launches ROM
image in QEMU
simulator

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PRACTICAL 1

Instructions for Practical 1 & 2 & 3

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QEMU – Output … and how it works

Debug Port

Kernel code -> Debug Handler -> Syborg

UART -> Host UART -> Host UART

Display
Board Model Configuration controlled by
EShell -> Console Windows Server -> DTS file
Screen Driver -> LCD Driver -> Frame
Buffer -> Host
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Rebuilding Syborg

•  Altering screen size

Modify KConfigLcdHeight to be 100 in \sf\adaptation\qemu\baseport\syborg\fb\Syborg_fb.h

•  Adding debug print

Add Kern::Printf(“Hello World”) to void TPointerRv::Init3() in \sf\adaptation\baseport\syborg\pointer\syborg_pointer.cpp

•  Building baseport
\sf\adaptation\qemu\baseport\syborg> sbs -b bld.inf -c armv5_udeb –j 1

•  Shows the ease of modification of the environment

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PRACTICAL 2

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Debugging Simulator

•  GDB Stop Mode Debugging

QEMU contains GDB stub which allows simulation environment to be controlled
by GDB debugger
GDB only understands ELF -> need to convert from Symbian E32 image

•  Command Line -> Use Eclipse GUI

Further info http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php/QEMU_&_Syborg_Debugging & \sf

\adaption\qemu\docs directory

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Simulator Features

•  Display driver
•  Keyboard /keymapping
•  Pointer driver
•  Serial Pdd
•  Ethernet Pdd
•  Sound Pdd (dummy)
•  Host file system (fsy + driver)
•  Debug Monitor

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 Simulator Features Demo (1)

•  Simple Console Application

•  Source code - \sf\adaptation\qemu\applications\SymbianLogo_TextShell

•  Build using command - sbs -b bld.inf -c armv5 –j 1

•  Add application into ROM -

Modiify \sf\os\kernelhwsrv\kernel\eka\rombuild\Tshell.oby to include line
‘ #include <rom\include\symbianlogo.iby> ’

•  Build ROM / Start ROM in QEMU

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PRACTICAL 3

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Simulator Features Demo (2)

•  Type “symbianlogo” from prompt

Host File System
Pointer Driver
Keyboard Driver
Display Driver

•  Where next with the demo

Have a play …
-  Learning
-  Port image codec onto Symbian
-  Port audio assets, implement hooks to QEMU audio
hardware
-  Don’t use console Wserv, create own implementation
for direct input events, create own UI

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GUI environment …

SF GUI image
configuration running
in QEMU … not just
Text shell

SFL code plus

configuration required
to allow GUI to boot

All user space code is

common allowing for
rapid prototyping of
product images

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QT UI environment …

QT apps running on top

of SF GUI image

Open source QT from

http://pepper.troll.no/
s60prereleases/

QT libs and example

apps built from
source then included
in Syborg ROM

Excellent usage of
prototyping future
technology

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Next Steps …

•  This is just the beginning…

–  New/enhanced drivers & board model peripherals
–  Configurations & new directions
–  Contributions

•  Questions ?

•  Further information - \sf\adaptation\qemu\docs\

- developer.symbian.org –wiki,forum,articles

Copyright © 2009 Accenture. All Rights Reserved. 21