README
1This is source release of the Android emulator. simply run the "build-emulator.sh" script to
2generate a statically linked "emulator" binary in the current directory.
3
4you can also use the "--target=<path>" option to install the executable into a different location,
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6At the moment, only Linux and Mac OS X are supported.
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8This emulator is probably not usable without other support files provided by the Android project,
9like a specific kernel image, ramdisk, system and user disk images. Please go to the Android web
10site for more details.
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12This emulator is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2, which can be
13found in the file "qemu/COPYING".
14
15it is based on QEMU 0.8.2 with many changes used to support the following features:
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17 - additionnal hardware support for some Android reference boards.
18
19 - various OS-X related patches to make everything compile cleanly with GCC 4.1 and
20 beyond. this includes better support for the Mach-O binary format
21
22 - support for instruction-level profiling and data cache simulation. this allows the
23 emulator to generate "profile" files that can later be analyzed with external tools
24 to provide accurate information about what's happening in the system
25
26 - changes in the dynamic code generators, mainly to support concurrent generators in
27 a single binary (this allows us to use different generators for profiling and
28 non-profiling modes, and switch between them dynamically at runtime when needed)
29
30 - support for network throttling and latency simulation, used to better emulate the
31 network conditions of radio networks.
32
33 - a new graphical user interface capable of displaying and rotating "device skins"
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35 - an optional (and disabled by default) "polling" runtime mode that doesn't use
36 SIGALRM signals to implement timers. this makes for much better timing accuracy
37 when using "old" emukated Linux kernels, at the cost of using 100% CPU, even when
38 the guest system is idle. This is now disabled since Linux 2.6.21 and beyond use
39 "dynamic ticks" that make this mode un-necessary for Android.
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41
42it also uses a patched version of LibSDL-1.2.12 which implements the following:
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44 - prevent a fatal bug in Quartz Extreme's QuickDraw emulation to crash the program
45 whenever SDL_WINDOW_POS is set in the environment before starting the program.
46 the patch implements a simple workaround to this system-level problem.
47
48 - new APIs: SDL_WM_GetPos() and SDL_WM_SetPos() are used to retrieve and set the emulator
49 window position. this allows us to implement a simple-yet-useful feature: the emulator remembers
50 its position among restarts.
51