Virtualize Raspberry Pi (i.e. ARM) on OS X using QEMU

Here’s how:

• Install and upgrade Xcode to 4.3 or above.
• Install the Xcode Command Line Tools (you can do this from within Xcode’s “Downloads” preference pane).
• Install Homebrew, using the instructions here – http://brew.sh/
• Force Homebrew to install version 1.1.0 of QEMU

  git checkout 2b7b4b3 Library/Formula/qemu.rb

• Install GCC compiler, needed for compiling QEMU

  brew install https://raw.github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-dupes/master/apple-gcc42.rb

• Install QEMU

  brew install qemu --env=std --use-gcc

• Download and extract the zip of your Raspbian image – I used http://downloads.raspberrypi.org/images/raspbian/2012-12-16-wheezy-raspbian/2012-12-16-wheezy-raspbian.zip
• Download a linux kernel, I found this one to work  – http://xecdesign.com/downloads/linux-qemu/kernel-qemu
• Put the above  in a directory and boot the image like this (replace image names if you downloaded something different):

  qemu-system-arm -M versatilepb -cpu arm1176 -m 256 -hda 2012-12-16-wheezy-raspbian.img -kernel zImage -append "root=/dev/sda" -serial stdio

Sources:

• https://github.com/psema4/pine/wiki/Installing-QEMU-on-OS-X>
• http://xecdesign.com/qemu-emulating-raspberry-pi-the-easy-way/