The device simulation software QEMU 7.1.0 version newly supports the LoongArch architecture

According to the release of Loongson Zhongke, recently, the QEMU official community released version 7.1.0, starting from this version, QEMU will support LoongArch. QEMU (Quick Emulator) is the mainstream device emulation software in the industry. Operating systems and programs that support other architectures can be run on a physical machine of one architecture (such as an X86 PC) so that software can run under different hardware architectures without awareness.

After QEMU implements support for the LoongArch architecture, users can compile, run and debug binary software compatible with the LoongArch architecture on a physical real machine that does not support the LoongArch architecture platform.

For software developers, QEMU can provide a platform for system execution under different hardware architectures, as well as a software cross-architecture integrated test environment to improve software development efficiency and maturity.

QEMU 7.1.0 version supports LoongArch architecture user mode program emulation and full system emulation. User-mode program emulation can run and debug user-mode programs of LoongArch architecture under X86 mainstream architecture.

The system emulation currently supports the emulation of the Loongson 3A5000 single board, which can run the community kernel, and users can debug the kernel and drivers, and perform CI testing.

In the future, the Loongson team will further improve the QEMU community's support for the LoongArch architecture, and contribute to the development of the LoongArch open source ecosystem in the QEMU branch.