lBochs PC Emulator

Description of lBochs PC Emulator

lBochs is a port of the Bochs X86 emulator (http://bochs.sourceforge.net).
The modified bochs sources are included as a tgz archive stored in the internal SD card (
Android/data/lb.myapp.lbochs
).
I provide a floppy with freedos just to make the emulator boot after app installation.
I provide also a virtual HD ready to use for OS installations.
It's possible to create shortcuts for different systems (if the home launcher allows it).
It's possible to set the emulator run on a specific cpu model (386/486/586/686/686X64), but the configuration must be chosen wisely or the app will crash badly.
A smart way to use the app is to create the VM on PC and then copy it inside the android device.
If you plan to put the virtual machines in the
external
SD card, be aware that Android>=4.4 grants write access to the app only under
/Android/data/lb.myapp.lbochs/files
.
Please note that this is a sort of nerd-oriented app, probably useless for the average android user.
You need a quite fast phone/tablet because the emulator is slow.
A virtual PC keyboard is provided, but you can use your own virtual keyboard if you like.
All the settings are made through a popup menu with quite many options.
The back button opens the menu.
The app is still considered in a sort of beta/testing stage but is already quite usable.
Multiprocessing
Version 2.0 introduces multiprocessor support. In Bochs all emulated cores run in a single thread, so a multiprocessor emulation
IS NOT
faster than a single processor emulation.
Usually it is slower. Then multiprocessor emulation
has nothing to do
with the number of cores in your device. The app has no control in which cores Android uses.
Many thanks to:
SDL (libsdl.org) - No porting possible without that
Bochs (bochs.sourceforge.net) - They made the real thing
FreeDOS (freedos.org) - The basic tools for a PC
Free icons authors (iconarchive.com) - I'm good at coding but bat at drawing
** WARNING **
The app seems quite stable to me, but it's easily possible to make it very unstable and it may crash immediately if the user plays too much with the configuration, or if the guest system is not managed well.
It's possible that you have to reboot your Android device in some cases.
It's possible that in some cases you have to uninstall and reinstall the app to make it work again.
Than the app may drain your battery quickly, but this depends on the configuration (emulated cpu cycles).
It's possible that the device CPU becomes stressed causing overheating.
So use it at your own risk.
** WARNING **