Eltechs Exagear Desktop For Raspberry Pi 2 Download
Brie Hoffler
The matter is that all of the applications for Windows are built for processors with so-called x86 architecture, while the systems, mentioned above can be used within a lot more variety of processors. For example, there is a type of processor with ARM architecture. They are also very popular and widely spread among professionals, who prefer to use this energy sufficient and cheap x86 alternative.
First thing you need a Raspberry Pi device. The best and fastest way now is to make a purchase on Aliexpress. I used to book such stuff on Amazon, but currently, Aliexpress offers almost the same delivery speed while prices are twice cheaper in most cases.
In this tutorials I use Raspberry Pi 3 and I am working directly from it. So, as soon as ExaGear has been downloaded, you have to get right in that directory to implement the further commands. For Raspbian this derictory is usually a "Downloads" folder. So the path will likely be
After the installation is complete, you need to launch the guest x86 environment. For that simply input "exagear" command. To check if everything is working correctly, use "arch" command. You should have "i686" sign to be returned. Do it precisely as is shown on the screenshot.
As soon as the installation of Wine is finished, you need to check the build of Wine. It should have the word "eltechs" in it, which means that this version of Wine has been made by Eltechs and is compatible with ExaGear Desktop emulator. But don't be afraid! If everything is done strictly in appliance with this tutorial, you won't have any problems. The command is:
So, you have got Wine on your RPi now, which works within an environment made up with an emulator. So you can open ".exe" files to set up x86 apps on you Raspberry Pi. Don't forget to switch on the x86 environment first! Wine can only work with a connectionof emulator, otherwise, it will never start.
You will see a window with the habitual Windows installation manager. So, you should just follow the prompts and set up an application as if you were operating on some Windows device. After that, any software installed in such a way can be launched directly from the Raspbian start menu.
UPD: It seems like ExaGear is no longer in service. If you haven't purchased the ExaGear license yet, so, I think you'd better use QEMU ( ) The general principle will be the same.
The desktop version of Fix-It Felix Jr. has been notoriously hard to find. It has been released as a flash game, an Apple iOS app, Android app, and even a homebrew Sega Genesis/MegaDrive ROM, but never as a stand alone application.
In a fresh install of Raspbian, you need to make sure to run sudo raspi-config and enable FULL Open GL support. After that, install ExaGear ( sudo ./install_exagear.sh ), and then double click on the exagear icon on the desktop to bring up the shell. Run sudo apt-get install wine, then run wine FixItFelixJr.exe .
Some of your favorite programs might not run on Raspberry Pi because no version is available for the ARM architecture. ExaGear Desktop changes that by acting as a translator between the ARM and x86 worlds.
The open source advantage was evident from the beginning with the Raspberry Pi: Since free software usually runs on many different platforms, almost all Debian packages could be ported to the new system in a very short time. In addition, there was software that exploited the Rasp Pi's special hardware features.
ExaGear is a tool that provides a special translation layer that converts x86 commands to ARM equivalents. You can use ExaGear to run software written for x86 systems on the ARM-based Raspberry Pi. Support for the Wine integration layer means you can even run old Windows programs directly on the Rasp Pi.
For a proprietary program, the download and installation is extremely easy [1]: ExaGear can be found in the Raspbian package sources. You can thus install it conveniently via the package manager and then start the emulator (Listing 1).
The last command in Listing 1 switches to the x86 environment. The first time you call it, a form appears, prompting you for your name and email address (Figure 1). The trial version can then be used in full for 72 hours. The license is tied to the CPU's serial number, which prevents users from simply reinstalling.
With a full license, the procedure is somewhat different (see the "Versions" box). Download a tarball specific to the Rasp Pi model used and unpack it in the same directory as the license file. Then start the installation command (Listing 2). (Eltechs kindly provided us with a license for this article.)
ExaGear Desktop costs between EUR11.95 for the Pi Zero/RPi1-compatible basic version and EUR40.95 for the RPi3-compatible enterprise version, depending on the platform and scope of functions. However, there are always special offers; for example, at the beginning of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, you could get two licenses for the price of one.
The cheapest license (for the Rasp Pi Zero/RPi1) is not really all that useful even for general use. Many programs fail due to meager resources. For special programs, however, the combination of Pi Zero and ExaGear can be a sensible alternative to a dusty Windows XP PC that only runs because there is no modern replacement for the beloved old laboratory software.
The tarball essentially contains a number of deb packages with guest systems, from which the installation script then selects the most suitable alternative for the installation. It also checks the license and activates the program.
Later on, you can avoid the detour via the exagear command for installed x86 programs, because the kernel identifies the binary format and launches the wrapper automatically. Of course, this is not automatically the case, but needs to be configured using the ExaGear installer.
The Jessie filesystem is located below /opt/exagear/images/debian-8/. From the normal Raspbian system, you can access the data stored there without any problems. Conversely, you can access the home directories of the host system: ExaGear integrates both /home/ and /dev/.
The guest system also relies on the host for services and udev rules. It would thus be pointless to reinstall services like cron inside the emulator. It only makes sense that the software prevents this.
On Linux, the operating system traditionally does not draw the graphical output, but instead relies on a separate program known as the X server. Applications that want to output a graphical user interface communicate with the X server and tell it what to draw. The X server then calls the kernel's low-level system driver interfaces. Communication between the X clients and the X server takes place via the network interfaces.
On workstations, the X server and its clients usually run on the same system. The X clients could also run on a computer at the other side of the world and send their graphics commands via the Internet to the home computer, which then displays the interface. Thanks to the standardized protocol, this also works across operating system boundaries. A Rasp Pi program's graphical output could therefore be easily displayed on an X server running Windows.
In relation to ExaGear Desktop, this means that the emulator does not have to take care of the graphical user interface. The x86 programs are ultimately equivalent to additional X clients. They send the output commands to the host's X server, which then displays the output. The server returns keyboard and mouse events to the X client in the emulator.
The advantage of the lean emulation layer is that it automatically supports multithreading; however, you still experience a loss of performance. Eltechs promises up to 80 percent of native performance, with the loss depending on the specific commands an application uses. In extreme cases, up to two-thirds of the Rasp Pi performance is lost.
On the Raspbian side, you should definitely take some precautions to ensure optimal conditions. This includes at least a newer generation RPi2 (the same processor as the RPi3) or higher. A fast hard disk (SSD) for the system also helps. You should also give the GPU enough memory, at least 256MB, which you can set with the parameter gpu_mem in the /boot/config.txt file.
Graphic-intensive applications also benefit from enabling hardware-supported graphics acceleration. You can do this in raspi-config, where you will find the setting GL Driver below Advanced Options. Select GL (Full KMS) OpenGL desktop driver with full KMS. Applications such as Skype (32-bit Linux version) have a problem with this. When Skype accesses the video camera, whether it's a Pi or USB camera, the X server crashes.
On the network side, emulation is less of a performance brake. Cloning a 260MB GitHub project took 140 seconds natively and 231 seconds in the emulator. The download rate in the emulator was only seven percent lower, the rest of the loss was attributable to the CPU for encryption and processing the Git metadata. With NFS or Samba transfers, on the other hand, the loss is in the range of measurement uncertainty.
Although Linux has made great strides in gaming, users sometimes miss the games that are only available on Windows. Linux provides a way to solve this problem with Wine, the Windows "not an emulator."
So here are 3 ways you can run x86 software on your raspberry pi,
one being the slowest using qemu, 2nd using chroot method to a x86 debian or ubuntu environment, and lastly to use eltech exagears which is essentially chroot method but in a much more seamless fashion. Thanks for the view!