QEMU CPU Emulator

QEMU is a FAST! processor emulator. By using dynamic translation it achieves a reasonnable speed while being easy to port on new host CPUs. QEMU has two operating modes:

* User mode emulation. In this mode, QEMU can launch Linux processes compiled for one CPU on another CPU. Linux system calls are converted because of endianness and 32/64 bit mismatches. Wine (Windows emulation) and DOSEMU (DOS emulation) are the main targets for QEMU.

* Full system emulation. In this mode, QEMU emulates a full system, including a processor and various peripherials. Currently, it is only used to launch an x86 Linux kernel on an x86 Linux system. It enables easier testing and debugging of system code. It can also be used to provide virtual hosting of several virtual PC on a single server.