BeagleBoard emulator

QEmu can be used to run a BeagleBoard emulator.
In Ubuntu 10.04, run the following commands to install the Linaro image tools and QEmu:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linaro-maintainers/tools
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install linaro-image-tools qemu-user-static qemu-system

Then head over to http://www.linaro.org/downloads/ and pick a community build for BeagleBoard (I have tried the Nano, ALIP and Ubuntu Desktop images succesfully), and download:

• a root file system (named linaro-X-YYYY-tar-XXXYYY.tar.gz)
• a hardware pack (named hwpack_linaro-omap3_XXXYYY-X_armel_supported.tar.gz 

For instance, I have downloaded linaro-o-ubuntu-desktop-tar-20120223-1.tar.gz and hwpack_linaro-omap3_20120221-1_armel_supported.tar.gz


Next, build the disk image for QEmu from the root file system and hardware pack:

sudo linaro-media-create --image_file beagle_sd.img --ev beagle --binary linaro-o-ubuntu-desktop-tar-20120223-1.tar.gz --hwpack hwpack_linaro-omap3_20120221-1_armel_supported.tar.gz

Change ownership of the image file to you:

sudo chown myself:myself beagle_sd.img

Next, run the image you just created in QEmu on emulated BeagleBoard-xm:

qemu-system-arm -M beaglexm -m 512 -drive if=sd,cache=writeback,file=./beagle_sd.img -clock unix -serial stdio -device usb-kbd -device usb-mouse -usb -device usb-net,netdev=mynet -netdev user,id=mynet

References:
http://www.cnx-software.com/2011/09/26/beagleboard-emulator-in-ubuntu-with-qemu/
https://wiki.linaro.org/Resources/HowTo/Qemu-beagleboard