For development on MacOS X, it can make sense to use Virtualbox and QEMU.
- QEMU to run the
armemulation - Virtualbox to run Ubuntu or another distro that can edit
ext4partitions
Download a base image RaspiNodeOS.img and link it to your VirtualBox Ubuntu instance:
VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename nodeos.vmdk -rawdisk RaspiNodeOS.img
In the VirutalBox settings panel for your instance, attach the nodeos.vmdk image as a new disk.
The disk should appear as /dev/sdb:
/dev/sdb1should be the/bootparition/dev/sdb2should be your mainext4partition housing the NodeOS build
Edit to your hearts content! Don't foreget to unmount before booting QEMU.
Follow the setup isntructions from Emulating Raspberry Pi the easy way. Note that you must download a linux kernel image to boot the instance.
The following should boot your system:
qemu-system-arm -kernel kernel-qemu -cpu arm1176 -m 256 -M versatilepb -no-reboot -serial stdio -append "root=/dev/sda2 rootfstype=ext4 init=/nodeos/root/bin/init BOOT=1 HOME=/nodeos/root PATH=/nodeos/root/bin:/nodeos/bin npkg start nodeos-knockout" -hda RaspiNodeOS.img