x86 emulation on N900
 

So I've searched and posted in a similar thread in the games sections. I don't think x86 emulation belongs under games so I'm posting here in order to help gets a much larger audiences feedback.

I've noticed the maemo community has a dosbox build. What I'm wondering is how extensive of emulation is this. I noticed someone in the games thread stating that it was for running old dos games (which is awesome to me, as I'm a die hard fan of more than a few), but not for running windows.

Is this a build limtation, or does the phone in general lack that kind of software emulation? Ie. can the phone work with the BOCHs plugin for 4/386 emulation?

I know hardware wise the phone more than meets the requirements to do so. I mean I've run windows 95 (albiet rather slowly) on a 6 year old dell axim x3 300mhz running winmo.

Anyone have any experience in this field? Perhaps using the N810 for example?

Would it be possible to install a desktop Linux build?

Any feedback is appreciated!

2d

Re: x86 emulation on N900
 

It is possible to run Windows 95 on the N810 via DosBox. There is also a BOCHs port.

Desktop Linux for ARM is possible. No idea why you would install Linux on a emulator...

Re: x86 emulation on N900
 

Good point. Didn't think about that. So there is a build of Ubuntu for example that is compiled for an ARM processor? Considering that Maemo is really a Linux build underneath (at least that's what I've read), how extensive is this? Ie, can apps intended for use in a desktop environment be installed here? Or is the Maemo build not setup for this kind of thing?

I'm REALLY not that familiar with Linux.

Thanks for the feedback, reassuring for sure.

Re: x86 emulation on N900
 

Yes there is

Don't waste your time with the Windows 95 since it's sloooow. It's more like proof-of-concept, not a real solution.

Re: x86 emulation on N900
 

There was a very interesting post here... I'd love to know if anything came of it:

http://forum.winehq.org/viewtopic.ph...94e10c9dad11a7

(zaurus discussion here)
http://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=14829

It seems you can use X86 Wine inside qemu to emulate a windows program (albeit slowly). I imagine this method would actually integrate the applications with the N900's windowing system too.

If Wine could possibly be compiled for ARM and then be used by qemu emulating an X86 we might actually get some acceptable performance - however I imagine this is much more easily said than done.

Re: x86 emulation on N900
 

I think would be really ideal. My actual application would be to run ms vs 2005 and up for working on code on the run, and even compiling. Since speed isn't really super crucial in these environments I think it should work. The compiling might be a little different though. Not sure how hardware based the compiler is.

Wine would however be a seriously eloquent solution. I'll have to look into that. My other idea was to just do like a vpn type solution to a box at the house over the cell network.

Especially since the only thing I really need a windows environment for is the compiling, I could even edit changes and then parse those changes to the box at the house, and then using remote desktop or something compile. I've never messed remote desktop type solutions, but I think that could also work.

2d