Compile32bitOnARM64

Cross compile 32 bit ASM on ARM64 using Docker

After a bit of thought I was able to find this workaround to cross compile 32 bit ASM files on an ARM64 CPU architecture machine (in my case, a MBP M2 Pro), avoiding slow, bulky and unresponsive emulated VMs.

GUIDE

Disclaimer: this guide uses Docker Desktop for ease of use.

First, make sure to install the Docker CLI plugin Buildx (e.g. using Homebrew, for which the recipe is brew install docker-buildx).

Then, open Docker Desktop -> Settings -> Docker Engine, and set the "experimental" flag to true. It should look something like this:

Now, open a Terminal window and navigate to the directory where you downloaded the Dockerfile, and paste this: docker buildx build --platform linux/386 --load -t ia32-assembly .

After that, run the container: docker run -d -it --name ia32onARM -v ~/Path/to/directory/:/workspace ia32-assembly with the intended path to the directory in which you want to save your files (you can also choose to create a new directory here by specifying a valid path to a non existing directory). Your files will be accessible inside the container, allowing you to easily edit and compile them without attaching the running container to VSC, which doesn't support i686.

Lastly, interact with the container via the terminal through the command: docker exec -it ia32onARM bash.

NOTE: Sadly, QEMU doesn't implement ptrace, hence making debugging using Valgrind and GDB impossible in the current version of my Container