The POWER8 Functional Simulator (aka Mambo) is free to use but not open source and is only supported on limited platforms. This is a guide to getting started guide with it with skiboot and linux.
From a bare x86_64 Ubuntu 16.04 install, to running skiboot and linux in the simulator, you can do do the following:
xterm is needed by the simulator.
apt-get install xterm
Download systemsim-p8..deb from: http://www-304.ibm.com/support/customercare/sas/f/pwrfs/home.html
dpkg -i systemsim-p8*deb
How to build a skiboot.lid is in the top level README file.
Use a 64 bit powerpc kernel here. If compiling yourself, we suggest using powernv_defconfig.
If you use op-build to build a full set of OpenPower images, you’ll likely be able to extract skiboot, zImage.epapr (or vmlinux and rootfs.cpio.xz) from output/images. We suggest using the opal_defconfig.
Setup environment variables to point to your images
export SKIBOOT_ZIMAGE=$HOME/src/op-build/output/images/zImage.epapr
export SKIBOOT=$HOME/src/op-build/output/images/skiboot.lid
export SKIBOOT_AUTORUN=1
If you want Mambo to autmatically run AND exit when the system is shutdown (or has a HW crash) use this:
export SKIBOOT_AUTORUN=2
If you want a vmlinux and separate initramfs you can also do this:
export SKIBOOT_ZIMAGE=$HOME/src/op-build/output/images/vmlinux
export SKIBOOT_INITRD=$HOME/src/op-build/output/images/rootfs.cpio.xz
export SKIBOOT=$HOME/src/skiboot/skiboot.lid
export SKIBOOT_AUTORUN=1
/opt/ibm/systemsim-p8/run/pegasus/power8 -f $HOME/src/skiboot/external/mambo/skiboot.tcl
This should open an xterm and start booting. It should take around 20sec to get to a petitboot console.