133 lines
5.6 KiB
Plaintext
133 lines
5.6 KiB
Plaintext
Bochs x86 Pentium Emulator
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Upated: Sun Jun 3 18:59:32 EDT 2001
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Version: 1.2
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WHAT IS BOCHS?
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Bochs is a highly portable open source IA-32 (x86) PC emulator
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written in C++, that runs on most popular platforms. It includes
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emulation of the Intel x86 CPU, common I/O devices, and a custom
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BIOS. Currently, bochs can be compiled to emulate a 386, 486 or
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Pentium CPU. Bochs is capable of running most Operating Systems
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inside the emulation including Linux, Windows 95, DOS, and
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Windows NT 4. Bochs was written by Kevin Lawton and is currently
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maintained by the Bochs project at "http://bochs.sourceforge.net".
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Bochs can be compiled and used in a variety of modes, some which are
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still in development. The 'typical' use of bochs is to provide
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complete x86 PC emulation, including the x86 processor, hardware
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devices, and memory. This allows you to run OS's and software within
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the emulator on your workstation, much like you have a machine
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inside of a machine. Bochs will allow you to run Win '95
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applications on a Solaris machine with X11, for example.
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Bochs is distributed under the GNU LGPL. See COPYING for details.
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GETTING CURRENT SOURCE CODE
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Source code for Bochs is available from the Bochs home page at
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http://bochs.sourceforge.net. You can download the most recent
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release, use CVS to get the latest sources, or grab a CVS
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snapshot which is updated nightly. The releases contain the most
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stable code, but if you want the very newest features try the
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CVS version instead.
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COMPILING BOCHS FROM SOURCES
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All releases are gzip'd tar files. That means the whole Bochs source
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code directory has been consolidated into one file using the Unix
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command 'tar', then compressed to save space with GNU 'gzip'. To
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extract the source code, you'll need both 'tar' and 'gzip/gunzip'.
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All files are contained within one subdirectory named 'bochs-[VERSION]'.
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cd /path/parent-directory
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gzip -dc bochs-[VERSION].tar.gz | tar -xvf -
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cd bochs-[VERSION]
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Before compiling, you'll need to run the configure script, which
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will configure source code to run on your system, and with your
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chosen options. There are many options to 'configure', and you
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probably don't need any of them. If you run BeOS, specify
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'--with-beos' to configure. To see a complete list:
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unix-> ./configure --help
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For more complete documentation of options available to configure,
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look at docs-html/configure.html in your browser.
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If configure cannot guess your compiler and compiler arguments,
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you will also need to set environment variables to tell configure
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what compiler and options to use. The relevant environment variables
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are CC and CXX (C and C++ compiler), CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS (options
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for the C and C++ compiler).
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Now run configure, be it manually or by way of a script file.
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unix-> ./configure
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-or-
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unix-> ./.conf.x86
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If the configure script bombs, check 'config.log'. Specifically,
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look for errors returned by the compiler. You may have options
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incompatible with your compiler. See the link on setting the
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environment variables above.
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Assuming at this point all went well with the configure command,
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edit the file 'config.h', which was generated by ./configure. Look
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for the USER CONFIGURABLE OPTIONS section. Each parameter available
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for editing is documented. Generally the defaults are fine for
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typical users. Please read about each parameter and edit carefully.
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NOTE: This file is generated, and will be deleted if you run 'make
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dist-clean'.
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You may now compile the source.
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unix-> make
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WHERE ARE THE DOCS?
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You have a local copy of the Bochs documentation in docs-html that
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came out of the TAR file. (Point your browser to
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docs-html/index.html.) These same docs are also on the web at
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http://bochs.sourceforge.net/docs-html. If you followed the compile
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directions above, the next step is "Setting up the environment
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before running" under Compile/Install.
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WHERE CAN I GET MORE INFORMATION? HOW DO I REPORT PROBLEMS?
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Both the docs-html and the Bochs website have instructions on how
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to join the bochs-developers mailing list, which is the primary
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forum for discussion of Bochs. The main page of the website also
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has links to bug reports and feature requests. You can browse and
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add to the content in these areas even if you do not have a (free)
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SourceForge account. We need your feedback so that we know what
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parts of Bochs to improve.
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There is a patches section on the web site too, if you have made
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some changes to Bochs that you want to share.
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HOW CAN I HELP?
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If you would like contribute to the Bochs project, a good first step
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is to join the bochs-developers mailing list, and read the archive
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of recent messages to see what's going on.
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If you are a technical person (can follow hardware specs, can write
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C/C++) take a look at the list of open bug reports and feature
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requests to see if you are interested in working on any of the
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problems that are mentioned in them. If you check out the CVS
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sources, make some changes, and create a patch, one of the
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developers will be very happy to apply it for you. Developers who
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frequently submit patches, or who embark on major changes in the
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source can get write access to CVS. Be sure to communicate with the
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bochs-developers list to avoid several people working on the same
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thing without realizing it.
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If you are a Bochs user, not a hardware/C++ guru, there are still
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many ways you could help out. We have a group of people working on
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making win32 binary releases, and building up a set of useful tools
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to include in those releases. Others are writing documentation or
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cleaning up the existing documentation. Others are testing out
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Bochs on every imaginable operating system and writing about how
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they did it.
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