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+.. _RISC-V-System-emulator:
+
+RISC-V System emulator
+======================
+
+QEMU can emulate both 32-bit and 64-bit RISC-V CPUs. Use the
+``qemu-system-riscv64`` executable to simulate a 64-bit RISC-V machine,
+``qemu-system-riscv32`` executable to simulate a 32-bit RISC-V machine.
+
+QEMU has generally good support for RISC-V guests. It has support for
+several different machines. The reason we support so many is that
+RISC-V hardware is much more widely varying than x86 hardware. RISC-V
+CPUs are generally built into "system-on-chip" (SoC) designs created by
+many different companies with different devices, and these SoCs are
+then built into machines which can vary still further even if they use
+the same SoC.
+
+For most boards the CPU type is fixed (matching what the hardware has),
+so typically you don't need to specify the CPU type by hand, except for
+special cases like the ``virt`` board.
+
+Choosing a board model
+----------------------
+
+For QEMU's RISC-V system emulation, you must specify which board
+model you want to use with the ``-M`` or ``--machine`` option;
+there is no default.
+
+Because RISC-V systems differ so much and in fundamental ways, typically
+operating system or firmware images intended to run on one machine
+will not run at all on any other. This is often surprising for new
+users who are used to the x86 world where every system looks like a
+standard PC. (Once the kernel has booted, most user space software
+cares much less about the detail of the hardware.)
+
+If you already have a system image or a kernel that works on hardware
+and you want to boot with QEMU, check whether QEMU lists that machine
+in its ``-machine help`` output. If it is listed, then you can probably
+use that board model. If it is not listed, then unfortunately your image
+will almost certainly not boot on QEMU. (You might be able to
+extract the file system and use that with a different kernel which
+boots on a system that QEMU does emulate.)
+
+If you don't care about reproducing the idiosyncrasies of a particular
+bit of hardware, such as small amount of RAM, no PCI or other hard
+disk, etc., and just want to run Linux, the best option is to use the
+``virt`` board. This is a platform which doesn't correspond to any
+real hardware and is designed for use in virtual machines. You'll
+need to compile Linux with a suitable configuration for running on
+the ``virt`` board. ``virt`` supports PCI, virtio, recent CPUs and
+large amounts of RAM. It also supports 64-bit CPUs.
+
+Board-specific documentation
+----------------------------
+
+Unfortunately many of the RISC-V boards QEMU supports are currently
+undocumented; you can get a complete list by running
+``qemu-system-riscv64 --machine help``, or
+``qemu-system-riscv32 --machine help``.
+
+..
+   This table of contents should be kept sorted alphabetically
+   by the title text of each file, which isn't the same ordering
+   as an alphabetical sort by filename.
+
+.. toctree::
+   :maxdepth: 1
+
+   riscv/microchip-icicle-kit
+   riscv/shakti-c
+   riscv/sifive_u
+   riscv/virt
+
+RISC-V CPU firmware
+-------------------
+
+When using the ``sifive_u`` or ``virt`` machine there are three different
+firmware boot options:
+1. ``-bios default`` - This is the default behaviour if no -bios option
+is included. This option will load the default OpenSBI firmware automatically.
+The firmware is included with the QEMU release and no user interaction is
+required. All a user needs to do is specify the kernel they want to boot
+with the -kernel option
+2. ``-bios none`` - QEMU will not automatically load any firmware. It is up
+to the user to load all the images they need.
+3. ``-bios <file>`` - Tells QEMU to load the specified file as the firmware.