Write Emulator-Friendly Linux Code

By Peter Seebach
2005-04-16


A Developer's Guide to Linux Emulators and How They Operate
Computers have been emulating other computers for a long time, often to access a legacy application or to use applications written for a popular OS on a system with a more stable, responsive OS. As Linux™ grows in popularity, developers need to examine their options when planning binaries that will run on non-Linux systems. This article examines what emulators do and looks at hardware and software emulation issues in detail.

For years, computers have been emulating other computers. A common reason to emulate older computers is nostalgia, and indeed, many emulators can run a broad variety of video games with perfect fidelity. Another reason to emulate another computer is to access application software that exists only on a specific platform.

In general, application emulation targets platforms that possess the larger market shares. For instance, the WINE project attempts to provide a way to run Windows® binaries, because -- let's face it -- there are many more cool applications for Windows than there are for Linux (although, as they point out, WINE Is Not an Emulator).

However, in recent years Linux has proven to be a stable and versatile operating system; consequently, its market share has grown. And along with the growth of market share has come a spike in interest in emulating Linux. This article reviews the current state of Linux binary emulation on other systems and highlights some of the issues that Linux developers should keep in mind to make life easier for the people running their binaries in emulation.

Tutorial Pages:
» A Developer's Guide to Linux Emulators and How They Operate
» The Basic Emulator
» Emulators as a Distribution Format
» Full Hardware Emulators
» Partial Hardware Emulators
» Software Emulators
» Like Normal Development, Only More So
» Resources


First published by IBM DeveloperWorks

Related Tutorials: » How to Install PHP 5 on Linux » How to Install Apache 2 on Linux » How to Install MySQL 5.0 on Linux » SMB Caching » Mound --Bind » Tar Wild Card Interpretation