Bochs - The cross platform IA-32 (x86) emulator Updated: Sun Aug 1 10:07:00 CEST 2021 Version: 2.7
WHAT IS BOCHS?
Bochs is a highly portable open source IA-32 (x86) PC emulator written in C++, that runs on most popular platforms. It includes emulation of the Intel x86 CPU, common I/O devices, and a custom BIOS. Bochs can be compiled to emulate many different x86 CPUs, from early 386 to the most recent x86-64 Intel and AMD processors which may even not reached the market yet. Bochs is capable of running most Operating Systems inside the emulation, for example DOS, Linux or Windows. Bochs was written by Kevin Lawton and is currently maintained by the Bochs project at "https://bochs.sourceforge.io".
Bochs can be compiled and used in a variety of modes, some which are still in development. The 'typical' use of bochs is to provide complete x86 PC emulation, including the x86 processor, hardware devices, and memory. This allows you to run OS's and software within the emulator on your workstation, much like you have a machine inside of a machine. Bochs will allow you to run Windows applications on a Solaris machine with X11, for example.
Bochs is distributed under the GNU LGPL. See LICENSE and COPYING for details.
GETTING CURRENT SOURCE CODE
Source code for Bochs is available from the Bochs home page at https://bochs.sourceforge.io. You can download the most recent release, use SVN to get the latest sources, or grab a SVN snapshot which is updated frequently. The releases contain the most stable code, but if you want the very newest features try the SVN version instead.
WHERE ARE THE DOCS?
The Bochs documentation is written in Docbook. Docbook is a text format that can be rendered to many popular browser formats such as HTML, PDF, and Postscript. Each binary release contains the HTML rendering of the documentation. Also, you can view the latest documentation on the web at https://bochs.sourceforge.io/doc/docbook/index.html
WHERE CAN I GET MORE INFORMATION? HOW DO I REPORT PROBLEMS?
Both the documentation and the Bochs website have instructions on how to join the bochs-developers mailing list, which is the primary forum for discussion of Bochs. The main page of the website also has links to bug reports and feature requests. You can browse and add to the content in these areas even if you do not have a (free) SourceForge account. We need your feedback so that we know what parts of Bochs to improve.
There is a patches section on the web site too, if you have made some changes to Bochs that you want to share.
HOW CAN I HELP?
If you would like contribute to the Bochs project, a good first step is to join the bochs-developers mailing list, and read the archive of recent messages to see what's going on.
If you are a technical person (can follow hardware specs, can write C/C++) take a look at the list of open bug reports and feature requests to see if you are interested in working on any of the problems that are mentioned in them. If you check out the SVN sources, make some changes, and create a patch, one of the developers will be very happy to apply it for you. Developers who frequently submit patches, or who embark on major changes in the source can get write access to SVN. Be sure to communicate with the bochs-developers list to avoid several people working on the same thing without realizing it.
If you are a Bochs user, not a hardware/C++ guru, there are still many ways you could help out. For example:
CHANGES
Brief summary of changes in 2.7:
See CHANGES file for more information!