GeezerVison

​Limbo supports light weight operating systems while large operating systems might be very slow or not work at all.
Operating systems that use a lot of memory might be stressing your device storage so it is recommended to store all Hard disk and ISO images on an External SD Card. It is recommended that you also read the specific tutorial sections and the Operating Systems guides to better tweak and customize your operating system for usability as well as performance. 

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Limbo is built for the following types of Android devices:

ARM 32 and 64 bit devices
This should include most Android phones and tablets including desktop enabled devices like Samsung Dex capable devices as well as laptops running Chrome OS on ARM.

Intel x86 32/64 bit devices
This should include older Android phones running on x86 cpus like Asus Zenfone and laptops running Android x86 or Chromium OS.

​Note for developers:
If you want to build Limbo for other host architectures for example MIPS you can modify the configuration files under android/device-config in the source code. Make sure you also read the README.developers to understand what other files might need to be modified.

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Limbo can currently emulate the following architectures:

Intel x86 32/64 bit
This is the most common architecture that people use to run Linux and other operating systems like Windos, ReactOS, FreeDOS, Icaros, etc.

ARM 32 and 64bit
You can run some few Linux Operating Systems for ARM CPUs such as Debian Linux for boards like Raspberry Pi.

​SPARC
You can boot and run many older operating system like Oracle Solaris.

PowerPC
You can run some few Linux Operating Systems for PowerPC such as Debian Linux or MacOS 9.

Note for developers:
Similarly if you would like to try another guest architecture that is supported by QEMU but is not included in Limbo you can modify the configuration files under android/device-config in the source code. Again, make sure you also read the README.developers to understand what files need to be modified.

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​Limbo emulation for the following device families via its front end:

• Board: CPU, RAM Memory (up to 8 GB), TCG acceleration single and multithreaded, KVM acceleration, TSC, ACPI, HPET.
• Disk Drives: IDE/SCSI up to 4 HDC cannot be used if CDROM is attached, CD ROM (1 IDE slot), Floppy Drives (up to 2), SD Card (only image files, does NOT bridge to Android external SD Card, only works for some emulators)
• Graphics: (standard, SVGA cirrus, SVGA VM Ware, sg3 for SPARC)
• Audio: (only suport under SDL interface)
• Network: (User mode for NAT network, TAP not supported for non-rooted devices)​
• Advanced: you can type additional QEMU parameters that are not provided on the GUI. For more information read the QEMU documentation web page.​

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This is a quick start guide that will get you up and running with a virtual machine.

Create the virtual Machine
To create a virtual machine press on the dropdown list on the top right corner labeled "Machine" and select "New".
Type a name that best describes your virtual machine.
You will be prompted with a selection of Operating Systems that when you click it will take you to an online installation guide with links to ISO CDROM installation media and/or virtual hard disk images. If you have your own disk images you want to install choose "Custom" instead.
The main screen is divided in sections so to start press on the Board section and select the amount of RAM that your virtual machine will use. You can find more information and recommended value in the operating system tutorials but usually 256 MB is fine for most of the supported Operating Systems.
You can also choose the cpu type you want, if it's a 64bit operating system make sure you provide the right CPU that supports it.
Choose the disks from the filesystem and the ISO files if you have one.
The rest of the options are optional if you want you can read more about each section here.

Start the virtual Machine
You can start your virtual machine by pressing on the play button. You can pause it (save state to disk) by pressing the pause button. If you start the virtual machine in SDL interface you can find similar menus that do the same within the SDL screen from the main menu.

Resume the virtual Machine
To resume a virtual machine from a previous saved state press on the play button. 
If for some reason the operating system fails to boot exit and press on "Discard VM State" from the menu. This will delete the state and you can reboot your machine.

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It is recommended you install your operating system to a virtual disk image using QEMU on your desktop instead of Limbo. This way the installation will be much faster and you will be able to easily customize and tweak to your liking. If you don't have QEMU installed on your desktop go to our Downloads section and scroll to the bottom to find the links to download and install QEMU for your desktop.

Once you downloaded QEMU you can use the command line to create and start a virtual machine as follows:

First create a virtual disk image using the qemu-img utility, we'll use the qcow2 format which is compact and grows only as the data inside the disk increase. We'll just name it harddisk.qcow2:
​qemu-img create -f qcow harddisk.qcow2

Then use the newly created hard disk image and your ISO image to start a virtual machine.
​qemu-system-x86_64.exe -cpu athlon -M pc -m 128 -cdrom cdrom.iso -hda harddisk.qcow2

Once QEMU starts you can proceed as normal and install your operating system as it was in a computer. Once the installation is complete you can transfer the qcow2 image to your Android device and attach it to the HDA drive in Limbo and boot the system.

For more information on the command line options including how to create different disk formats and attaching emulated graphics, network, and audio devices you can visit the official QEMU documentation web page.

Note that you can always attach the emulated devices afterwards in Limbo but it is advised that you do that during the operating system installation on your desktop so they can be detected and installed faster. You will find that there is plenty of advanced options worth reading about that you can use to further optimize your virtual disk images on the QEMU documentation link above.

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We have divided the tutorials as per the sections that appear on Limbo's main screen. If you want to learn more about what each section does and does not click on the links below. We suggest you read all the section tutorials to learn briefly what you can do with Limbo. Though if you have already done that and you feel comfortable you can start reading on the Operating Systems sections to learn more about what operating systems are supported and how to tweak them to make them more mobile friendly and get the best perfomance.

User Interface
​Board
​Drives
Graphics
Audio
​Network
Advanced
Import and Export
Share Files
​Settings
​Android Tools