Bochs简介

Bochs这个玩意最近经常用到，但我还是对它的用处概念啥的不太明白，简答记录下吧
Bochs官网有它的英文简介

Bochs is a highly portable open source IA-32 (x86) PC emulator written in C++, that runs on most popular platforms. It includes emulation of the Intel x86 CPU, common I/O devices, and a custom BIOS. Bochs can be compiled to emulate many different x86 CPUs, from early 386 to the most recent x86-64 Intel and AMD processors which may even not reached the market yet.
Bochs is capable of running most Operating Systems inside the emulation including Linux, DOS or Microsoft Windows. Bochs was originally written by Kevin Lawton and is currently maintained by this project.
Bochs can be compiled and used in a variety of modes, some which are still in development. The ‘typical’ use of bochs is to provide complete x86 PC emulation, including the x86 processor, hardware devices, and memory. This allows you to run OS’s and software within the emulator on your workstation, much like you have a machine inside of a machine. For instance, let’s say your workstation is a Unix/X11 workstation, but you want to run Win’95 applications. Bochs will allow you to run Win 95 and associated software on your Unix/X11 workstation, displaying a window on your workstation, simulating a monitor on a PC.

简单来说，Bochs就是一款C++实现的模拟机。不过它和我们用的VMWare啥的不一样。VMWare仅仅仿真了一些IO接口，好多硬件都是需要实时去找x86调用的。而Bochs比较牛逼，基本仿真了全PC平台，CPU，内存，BIOS啥的都能自己仿真。
因此，Bochs的性能会比其他虚拟机差点，但是它很适用于底层开发，包括操作系统的开发。