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Emulator Now Runs x86 Apps On All Raspberry Pi Models

Posted by Soulskill on from the onward-and-upward dept.

DeviceGuru writes: Russia-based Eltechs announced its ExaGear Desktop virtual machine last August, enabling Linux/ARMv7 SBCs and mini-PCs to run x86 software. That meant that users of the quad-core, Cortex-A7-based Raspberry Pi 2 Model B, could use it as well, although the software was not yet optimized for it. Now Eltechs has extended extended ExaGear to support earlier ARMv6 versions of the Raspberry Pi. The company also optimized the emulator for the Pi 2 allowing, for example, Pi 2 users to use automatically forwarding startup scripts.

23 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. I'm having flashbacks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm having flashbacks to Windows NT 4.0 on the alpha running X86 apps. Oh God those were terrible times!

    1. Re:I'm having flashbacks by Major+Blud · · Score: 2

      I could never figure out why DEC even bothered with FX!32, or why MS bothered with Alpha for that matter. I mean, PowerPC OS X Apps didn't run that slow on Intel when using Roesetta.....how did FX!32 get it so wrong?

      --
      If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
    2. Re:I'm having flashbacks by ArchieBunker · · Score: 2

      FX!32 ran programs at about 66% of their normal speeds. It wasn't that bad. They bothered because there wasn't any native Alpha NT programs at the time.

      --
      Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    3. Re:I'm having flashbacks by Major+Blud · · Score: 2

      "They bothered because there wasn't any native Alpha NT programs at the time"

      Yeah that was kinda my point though....DEC had VMS and Tru64, which smoked NT 4.0. I blame Compaq ;-)

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      If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
    4. Re:I'm having flashbacks by KGIII · · Score: 2

      I blame Digital. They had no business selling themselves, whores... Really, they should not have sold their dirty, sexy, selves...

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  2. 1987 called by Nukem,Duke · · Score: 2

    They want their Sidekick and Lotus 123 back!

    1. Re:1987 called by halivar · · Score: 2

      No, they do not.

  3. Re:And the news is... by John+Bokma · · Score: 2, Informative

    In August, Eltechs said ExaGear Desktop ran 4.5 times faster than the open source QEMU VM. With new performance improvements, the software is 5 to 10 percent faster, or about five times faster than QEMU, claims Gimpelson.

    Emphasis added

    --

    Perl Programmer for hire
  4. Re:APPS? x86 *APPS* by sexconker · · Score: 2, Insightful

    App the apps while apping apps!
    What the fuck ever happened to "program", "application", "software", or "code"?

  5. Re:And the news is... by eltechs457 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ExaGear is extremely fast. You can achieve almost native performance. Take a look on benchs on http://eltechs.com/product/exa...

  6. History repeats itself... by John+Bokma · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The first ARM desktop computer, the Acorn Archimedes, got quite early on a PC emulator which, if I recall correctly, emulated a 80186. The ARM 2 processor, running at 8 MHz could emulate this processor at close to 5-6 MHz (again, if I recall correctly).

    --

    Perl Programmer for hire
    1. Re:History repeats itself... by SuricouRaven · · Score: 2

      I remember it ran RISC OS. Looking at pictures of Acorn machines, th A3010 looks like the one I remember - I may be wrong, but not by far. The label on top I remember as quite distinctive.

      I found it very useful for media convertions: My IBM had a 2.88MB floppy drive, my other PCs had conventional 1.44MB, and my Atati used some weird Atari thing. The Acorn machine was able to read all of them and so, when not being used for Cannon Fodder (Which I never did manage to finish), it served to exchange data between them.

  7. Re:And the news is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think it's a big deal to Russia since they don't have access to Intel/AMD cpu's, so they're basing their homegrown computers on ARM. Anyone using an ARM based computer probably wants to run some x86 software sometimes. I think the design goals for Boch's and ExaGear is different, people using ARM based computers would like access to all the x86 software available. It doesn't seem like Boch's is compiled for ARM/Android yet so that's a huge group that's not being serviced, so it's kind of a big deal.

  8. Re:And the news is... by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 3, Informative

    Sounds about right... QEMU isn't designed to be fast, it's designed to be accurate and portable. so writing a pipelined JIT x86 emulator specifically for ARM should get around a 4x speedup over QEMU even if it is solely based on QEMU code and a JIT engine, prior to optimization.

  9. Re:And the news is... by antiperimetaparalogo · · Score: 2

    In August, Eltechs said ExaGear Desktop ran 4.5 times faster than the open source QEMU VM. With new performance improvements, the software is 5 to 10 percent faster, or about five times faster than QEMU, [according to Eltechs CEO Vadim Gimpelson in an email to LinuxGizmos].

    Emphasis added

    Emphasis and extra quote added

    --
    Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
  10. Re:APPS? x86 *APPS* by CODiNE · · Score: 2

    Memory around here is so short.

    Apple had long called their programs "applications" while Windows used "Programs" and DOS used "executables".

    Then came the iPhone with the "App Store" which Apple Trademarked, quickly everybody else started using the same term to ride on high consumer awareness of the term. Apple sued, and Amazon and finally gave up on it.

    Since then "Apps" has become a widespread generic term, and Tim Cook cries a little inside every time he sees it used for non-Apple software.

    --
    Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
  11. Re:And the news is... by dosius · · Score: 3, Informative

    Huh? Last I checked, qemu WAS designed to be fast - or at least compared to Bochs, which isn't saying much, it was intended to be fast. Or are you confusing the two?

    --
    What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
  12. Re:And the news is... by John+Bokma · · Score: 2

    Oops, Slashdot ate my emphasis. Also, I think it was clear that those figures came from Eltechs as the first sentence I quoted states "In August, Eltechs said" ;-).

    --

    Perl Programmer for hire
  13. No source, no future by morgauxo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wouldn't bother. Just use QEMU. It's slower but it works.

    I don't think proprietary software is worthwile on Linux. No, I'm not an RMS type that would completely boycott proprietary anything on philosphical grounds. It's just that my experience is that if I can't compile it from source on Linux it sucks.

    First... you have to be running the same distro as the author or.. no support and maybe a 40% chance it will even work.

    Ok, for the Pi everything is probably Raspbian so that might not be a problem.

    But.. a year later... it doesn't work if you download any updates because it is dependant on some old library version or the distro has moved some file or something like that.

    If you get source code... just recompile and it works. You get about 5 years before Linux has changed too much to use that same source code without modification.

    Get a community to maintain the source code... it's more like 25 years.

    Now.. proprietary software on Windows.. 10 to 20 years before you can't use it anymore.

  14. Yes, but does it crawl Windows? by davidwr · · Score: 2

    Obviously it doesn't run the 32-bit version of Windows 8, but does it at least crawl it?

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  15. Re:APPS? x86 *APPS* by JustOK · · Score: 2

    core dumps, more like.

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    rewriting history since 2109
  16. Re:And the news is... by sjames · · Score: 2

    Qemu was fast compared to Bochs when running on the same architecture it was emulating in part because Bochs used full emulation all the time IIRC.

  17. Re:And the news is... by Zymergy · · Score: 2

    I'd like to ask if QEMU is a newer version of the Quarterdeck Expanded Memory Manager? (sarcasm)