#HOW-TO: Virtualize Raspian with Qemu
0.Workspace
mkdir -p ~/workspace/raspdev
cd ~/workspace/raspdev
1.Install Qemu
Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install libsdl-dev
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linaro-maintainers/tools
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install qemu-system
or
From source:
sudo apt-get install git zlib1g-dev libsdl1.2-dev
sudo apt-get install libpixman-1-dev
git clone git://git.qemu-project.org/qemu.git
cd qemu
./configure --target-list="arm-softmmu arm-linux-user" --enable-sdl
make
sudo make install
2.Download kernel image
wget http://xecdesign.com/downloads/linux-qemu/kernel-qemu
3.Download Raspian
wget http://downloads.raspberrypi.org/images/raspbian/2013-02-09-wheezy-raspbian/2013-02-09-wheezy-raspbian.zip
# should be b4375dc9d140e6e48e0406f96dead3601fac6c81
sha1sum 2013-02-09-wheezy-raspbian.zip
unzip 2013-02-09-wheezy-raspbian.zip
4.Patch Raspian:
This is a patch to prevent an error on startup. The error message is "init [0] respawning too fast disabled 5 minutes".
file 2013-02-09-wheezy-raspbian.img
#From the output of the file command, take the partition 2 'startsector' value an multiply by 512, and use this figure as the #offset value in the mount command below.
sudo mount 2013-02-09-wheezy-raspbian.img -o offset=62914560 /mnt
sudo nano /mnt/etc/ld.so.preload
# Comment the line in this file with #
sudo umount 2013-02-09-wheezy-raspbian.img /mnt
5.Run Raspian with Qemu
qemu-system-arm -kernel kernel-qemu -cpu arm1176 -m 256 -M versatilepb -no-reboot -serial stdio -append "root=/dev/sda2" -hda 2013-02-09-wheezy-raspbian.img
6.Repair the disk of the Raspian (you should be login as root)
fsck /dev/sda2
reboot
7.Start again the machine, you're set
qemu-system-arm -kernel kernel-qemu -cpu arm1176 -m 256 -M versatilepb -no-reboot -serial stdio -append "root=/dev/sda2" -hda 2013-02-09-wheezy-raspbian.img
Sources: