Just to get this out of the way: it uses qemu, so this is not a secret hack to make stuff run faster. This is meant to make stuff run easier.
Step 1: install qemu support packages for arm:
sudo apt install binfmt-support qemu-user-static qemu-system-arm
Step 2: enable miscellaneous binaries support (binfmt):
sudo systemctl enable --now binfmt-support
Step 3: enable arm support in apt (so you can even install arm build dependencies or binaries if you are so inclined):
sudo dpkg --add-architecture armhf
sudo apt update
For sources that do not support armhf, you can specify the architecture that is supported in the configuration:
So this:
deb https://blah/blah stable main
becomes:
deb [arch=amd64] httpsblah/blah stable main
The result (an example):
apt install sl:armhf
sl
Enjoy the steam locomotive in all its ARM goodness.
Another example, troubleshoot or maintain your raspberry (raspbian) from your PC:
mount /dev/sdcardrootpartition /mnt # Mount raspberry pi sdcard that you just popped in your PC
for x in dev sys proc dev/pts ; do mount --bind /$x /mnt/$x ; done # mount convenience filesystems
chroot /mnt su - # (type exit to close the shell)
Enjoy the raspberry system as if it was native