Linux kernel portability and supported architectures

Originally written for Intel's i386 processor, very early in its history, the Linux Kernel was re-coded for easy portability. It had been re-written once for the Motorola 68K; the prospect of tedious re-writes for each possible architecture prompted Torvalds to aim for a modular code base which could be ported to different processor architectures with a minimum possible effort.

Architecture specific folders in the kernel source address the particular details of each supported processor, while all benefit by sharing the identical bulk of the kernel code.

Additional modularity was achieved by kernel 2.0 with dynamically loadable modules.

List of supported architectures

Linux supports the following machine architectures:

* Alpha architecture:
** DEC Alpha
** Samsung Alpha CPU
* Analog Devices
** Blackfin (since [http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=117902651507441&w=2 2.6.22] )
* Argonaut RISC Core (ARC) from ARC International
* ARM architecture:
** Acorn Archimedes and Risc PC series
** DEC StrongARM
** Marvell (formerly Intel) XScale
** Sharp Zaurus
** iPAQ
** Palm, Inc.'s Tungsten Handheld [ [http://palmtelinux.sf.net Linux on Palm Tungsten E] ]
** Gamepark Holdings' GP2X
** Nokia 770 Internet Tablet
** Nokia N800
** Nokia N810
** gumstix
** Nintendo DS via DSlinux
** Sony Mylo
** Psion 5, 5MX, Series 7, netBook
** Some Models of Apple iPods (see iPodLinux)
** OpenMoko Neo 1973
** Freescale's (formerly Motorola) i.MX multimedia processors
* Atmel AVR32
* Axis Communications' ETRAX CRIS
* Freescale 68k architecture (68020, 68030, 68040, 68060):
** Some Amigas: A1200, A2500, A3000, A4000
** Apple Macintosh II, LC, Quadra, Centris and early Performa series
* Fujitsu FR-V
* Hewlett-Packard's PA-RISC family
*H8 architecture from Renesas Technology, formerly Hitachi.
** H8/300
** H8/500
* IBM
** System/390 (31-bit)
** zSeries and System z9 mainframes (64-bit)
* Intel IA-64 Itanium, Itanium II
* x86 architecture:
** IBM PC compatibles using IA-32 and x86-64 processors:
*** Intel 80386, 80486, and their AMD, Cyrix, Texas Instruments and IBM variants
*** The entire Pentium series and its Celeron and Xeon variants
*** The Intel Core processors
*** AMD 5x86, K5, K6, Athlon (all 32-bit versions), Duron, Sempron
*** x86-64: 64-bit processor architecture, now officially known as AMD64 (AMD) or Intel64 (Intel); supported by the Athlon 64, Opteron and Intel Core 2 processors, among others
*** Cyrix 5x86, 6x86 (M1), 6x86MX and MediaGX (National/AMD Geode) series
*** VIA Technologies Eden (Samuel II), VIA C3, and VIA C7 processors
** Microsoft's Xbox (Pentium III processor), through the Xbox Linux project
** SGI Visual Workstation (Pentium II/III processor(s) with SGI chipset)
** Sun Microsystems Sun386i workstation (80386 and 80486)
** Support for 8086, 8088, 80186, 80188 and 80286 CPUs is under development (the ELKS fork) [ [http://elks.sourceforge.net ELKS project] ]
* M32R from Mitsubishi
* MIPS architecture:
** Infineon's Amazon & Danube Network Processors
** Jazz
** Cobalt Qube, Cobalt RaQ
** DECstation
** Godson (MIPS-like), Godson II, and Godson IIE from BLX IC Design Ltd (China)
** Some PlayStation 2 models, through the PS2 Linux project
** PlayStation Portable uClinux 2.4.19 port [http://df38.dot5hosting.com/~remember/chris/]
** Broadcom wireless chipsets
** Dreambox (HD models) [ [http://www.dream-multimedia-tv.de/english/products_dm800_technical.php Dream Multimedia DM 800 PVR technical data] ]
*OpenRISC open core processor series:
** Beyond Semiconductor OR1200
** Beyond Semiconductor OR1210
*Power Architecture:
** IBM Servers
* PowerPC architecture:
** IBM's Cell
** Most pre-Intel Apple computers (all PCI-based Power Macintoshes, limited support for the older NuBus Power Macs)
** Clones of the PCI Power Mac marketed by Power Computing, UMAX and Motorola
** Amigas upgraded with a "Power-UP" card (such as the Blizzard or CyberStorm)
** AmigaOne motherboard from Eyetech Group Ltd (UK)
** Samantha from Soft3 (Italy)
** Amy'05 PowerPC motherboard from Troika
** IBM RS/6000, iSeries and pSeries systems
** Pegasos I and II boards from Genesi
** Nintendo GameCube, through Nintendo GameCube Linux
** Project BlackDog from Realm Systems, Inc.
** Sony Playstation 3
** V-Dragon CPU from Culturecom.
** Virtex II Pro Field Programmable Array (FPGA) from Xilinx with PowerPC cores.
** Dreambox (non-HD models) [ [http://www.dream-multimedia-tv.de/english/products_dm500_technical.php Dream Multimedia DM 500 + technical data] ]
* SPARC
** SPARC (32-bit):
*** Sun-4 (to be abandoned in version 2.6.27)
*** SPARCstation/SPARCserver series (sun4c, sun4m, sun4d)
** SPARC (64-bit):
*** Sun Ultra series
*** Sun Blade
*** Sun Fire
*** SPARC Enterprise systems based on the UltraSPARC T1 and UltraSPARC T2 processors

* SuperH
** Sega Dreamcast (SuperH SH4)
** HP Jornada 680 through Jlime distribution (SuperH SH3)

Additional processors (particularly Freescale's 68000 and ColdFire) are supported by the MMU-less μClinux variant.

ee also

* Comparison of operating systems
* Embeddable Linux Kernel Subset

References

External links

*cite journal
author = Jae Yun Moon and Lee Sproull
title = Essence of Distributed Work: The Case of the Linux Kernel
journal = First Monday
month = November
year = 2000
volume = 5
issue = 11
url = http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_11/moon/
* [http://www.lynuxworks.com/support/bluecat/docs/0370-00-BCLinux_3.0_KnlPtgGd.pdf BlueCat — Linux Kernel Porting Guide]