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Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Topic started by: adrian82 on December 25, 2012, 12:00:32 AM

Title: Debian m68k port has come back to life!
Post by: adrian82 on December 25, 2012, 12:00:32 AM
Hey there,

for anyone out there who wants to be able to run a decent Linux distribution on their m68k Amigas there are very good news from the Debian project. After being (virtually) dead for years, we have finally been able to restore the first build-daemon for the m68k architecture, meaning that from now on new packages are being built for this architecture and anyone wanting to use Linux on their Amigas are now able to install the first (automatically) updated packages.

For more information, please see here:

http://grep.be/blog/en/computer/debian/m68k/arrakis

We are looking for more people who would like to get involved into the m68k port. If you want to join, please subscribe and post to our mailing list:

http://lists.debian.org/debian-68k/

You can also join us in IRC: #debian-68k on the OFTC networks (irc.oftc.net).

See you there!

Cheers,

Adrian
Debian Developer
Title: Re: Debian m68k port has come back to life!
Post by: prowler on December 25, 2012, 08:38:47 AM
What hardware base is required for the build being worked on atm (RAM/CPU etc)? I am guessing MMU+FPU will be required?
Title: Re: Debian m68k port has come back to life!
Post by: adrian82 on December 25, 2012, 02:27:16 PM
Quote from: prowler;720272
What hardware base is required for the build being worked on atm (RAM/CPU etc)? I am guessing MMU+FPU will be required?


You will need an 68k CPU which supports an MMU which means you have to have a 68020 plus the additional MMU or better. An FPU is optional, but highly recommended. Plus, you need at least 32MB of memory (FastMem excluding ChipMem).

I am currently trying to install Debian m68k on my Amiga 1200 with an ACA-1230/50/64MB Fast which sports a 68030 with integrated MMU but without an external FPU without success. I am not sure whether it's related to the missing FPU (the kernel itself doesn't require an FPU and provides FPU emulation for applications requiring one) or a different bug. But we are working to get Linux back running on most 68k hardware.

Cheers,

Adrian
Title: Re: Debian m68k port has come back to life!
Post by: magnetic on December 26, 2012, 06:48:42 AM
Awesome news! thanks for your work. Can you run X on amiga? Firefox? See my spec in my sig what would be possible?

My friend Sven Luther used to be the kernel maintainter for Debian on amiga PPC and then Pegasos.. maybe get in touch with him as well?
Title: Re: Debian m68k port has come back to life!
Post by: apa on December 28, 2012, 01:10:04 PM
Congrats! A fresh Linux on our Amigas in 2012. Fantastic.(and we also have netbsd)