Pi In A VM!

I just thought I would share an interesting find (for me at least!).

My Pi project uses a very low footprint OS version called DietPi, when set up for the project it is 1.7Gb on the SD card.

I went to look at their site today and saw several images that run in a VM.

I downloaded the VMWare one and now have it all running great on the MAC.

Certainly a step forward in debugging and will most definitely make it quicker for my own development.

I suggest you try running ARM Xojo Code on it. (VMware cannot emulate ARM at all).

Their just letting their OS run same setup but not in any way emulating CPU. Which again would call for you to compile your Xojo code to x86 to test on it. (well 64 bit actually if you look at their web page). So not really any breakthrough since you always been able to test your 32bit Linux and 64bit Linux code in VM’s.

So its Basically like lite version Ubuntu that you can both run on big computer and micro computer.

I am sure the differences in ARM and the emulated CPU are important in many cases, not so far in my project.

The main issue for me is how different the GUI looks on a MAC when compared to the linux/ARM version.
I have been doing much work just using a MINT VM to follow these differences, where now it is as close as I can get without needing to constantly have hands on with the hardware.

A bonus is now I can send customers an application that they can see emulated, that looks very much like the finished product, without sending them a big parcel through the post.

As we all know, the customer does not care about what is going on in the back ground, only what is on screen!

Is this the site?

http://dietpi.com

yup, it has very little in the initial download, not even a desktop, all required software is chosen initially at install, then added later if required.
I have found it really useful for a minimal install.

That’s a horrible web site design. That’s neither here nor there for the point at hand, but I felt obligated to say it nonetheless.

It wasn’t immediately obvious to me what I’d download to try in Parallels. I was looking for a “VM” section or something like that, but didn’t see it. Any help?

http://dietpi.com/downloads/images/DietPi_VmWare-x86_64-(Jessie).7z
but it’s for vmware I don’t know if Parallels will open it.

yes it is a very poorly designed website for sure.

no idea about parallels, sorry its not something I would use.

all the available downloads are on the same page, the home page, at the very bottom of the very long and over designed page.

There seems not to be a parallels one yet, a virtual box one is and think thats free?

Parallels can open VMs from other environments, including VMWare. Download the VMWare version, decompress it (I use an app called The Unarchiver), then, in Parallels, use File->Open to open the .vmx file.

It’s converting it as I type this so I don’t know yet if it will work in this case, but it did prompt me for the username and password.

username root
password dietpi

it mentions it at the prompt and at the download, as I expect you have found, included for future reference.

Yes. I had to leave but it looks like it worked.

I just got home and started the setup. I chose a few options and it seems to be installing just fine. So for anyone who wants to do this in Parallels, follow the instructions three posts above.

great stuff, by no means a perfect solution but it certainly add to the toolset until we get, if ever, a debug ability in the IDE.

Fyi, you can run an ARM VM on Intel architectures using qemu.

https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi/qemu-user-static

Thanks Bob, good information for readers of the thread, although it is unlikely I would wish to spend all that time at the command prompt.

If anyone does please report back.