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Lets say that I have a device, such as an android phone (just for example) and I have the firmware for that device. Is there a method to emulate the entire firmware? Just like a virtual machine but for firmware that is not designed to run on normal x86 processors. I was looking into it and I think qemu might do what I need but I wanted to see if anyone had any experience with something similar.

Thanks, and sorry if its a noob question

PS, the firmware I have is designed to run on ARM processors

user488244
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you need to emulate the hardware.

an operating system or firmware directly interfaces with hardware... like the display, touch screen, buttons, speakers, wireless chipset, etc.

to make the operating system work on different hardware, you either need to program it to accept the available hardware (such is more easily possible in the case of an open-source operating system like android), or provide it with simulated hardware identical to the original device.

lunixbochs
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  • Ah, thank you for the clarification. Do you know of a good way to emulate the hardware? I'm sure it would depend on the hardware, but just for example :) – user488244 Jan 06 '11 at 06:08
  • it's a fairly complicated process. there are many open source hardware emulators for different platforms. for example, any game console emulator, bochs. you can try an existing emulator like bochs or skyeye if your target is arm, but that won't directly help you with all of the extra hardware the operating system depends on (primarily: input methods like touch, display acceleration, and chipsets like wireless/cellular/bluetooth/audio) – lunixbochs Jan 06 '11 at 14:40