Compiling and running ARM programs on x86_64

This post gives instructions on comping and running ARM 32-bit programs on an x86_64 using Ubuntu 19.10 and the GCC toolchain. The resulting binary also runs on a Raspberry Pi 2, and probably any Pi variant.

Install the cross-platform toolchain:

sudo apt install qemu-user qemu qemu-user-static
sudo apt install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi
sudo apt install binutils-arm-linux-gnueabi

Additional dependencies given in this post may also be necessary.

Create the file hello.c:

#include 
int main()
{
    puts("Hello world");
    return 0;
}

Compile it:

arm-linux-gnueabi-gcc -static hello.c -o hello

You can check details about the executable by typing file hello:

hello: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, ARM, EABI5 ...

Run it:

qemu-arm hello

That’s it. You can copy the exe to a Pi 2, and it should work fine.

You might also consider installing the following compiler: arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc