Linux for the Sega MegaDrive

Post by piltdownman » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 1:10 PM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #14

Genesis does what Nintendon't. > The lowly 68000 in the Sega doesn’t have a memory management unit required for the full Linux experience, so what’s really running here is a kernel compiled with the -nommu option. Huh... I thought Linux actually required MMUs. I was under the impression it'd never run on these old consoles because of that. Learned something new today. > A QEMU fork that emulates enough of the MegaDri…

Post by cwnyth » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 1:30 PM UTC

functionmouse wrote: post #21

jaza wrote: post #20

Still got my Mega Drive, purchased circa 1994. Recently brought it back to life with a Level Hike (I know, apparently RAD2x is better, anyway works well enough for me) HDMI adapter (otherwise sadly it doesn't work with new digital-only TVs), the main unit and all my old games (Sonic 1 and 2, Columns, Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, Wonder Boy in Monster World, Shining Force (needed new battery in cartridge for sav…

people go through so much trouble buying expensive converters, scalers, etc. to make their old games look good on their new tv when there's plenty of old CRTs at thrift stores for maybe like 50 bucks for an excellent one with all the fancy hookups like component and everything, I don't get it. I understand CRTs aren't gonna be around forever so we should in fact be working towards future proofing but, they are around…

Post by ChrisRR » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 1:33 PM UTC

HerbManic wrote: post #10

Very cool to see, so pointless it just had to be done. I was wondering how it was squeezed into 64KB of RAM but it uses the 4MB on the Everdrive cart. With that it makes sense, considering Linux can run on an N64 with 4MB of RAM.

Post by nommuenjoyer » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 1:33 PM UTC

piltdownman wrote: post #22

matheusmoreira wrote: post #14

Genesis does what Nintendon't. > The lowly 68000 in the Sega doesn’t have a memory management unit required for the full Linux experience, so what’s really running here is a kernel compiled with the -nommu option. Huh... I thought Linux actually required MMUs. I was under the impression it'd never run on these old consoles because of that. Learned something new today. > A QEMU fork that emulates enough of the MegaDri…

There was no MMU in the Macintosh Classic/SE lineup which used the 68k as a CPU, but they still support the microcontroller targeted distros like uClinux. Unfortunately the tight integration with the ToolBox ROM makes it a fairly Herculean task. Microsoft bizarrely enough released Xenix for the Apple LISA as well, but that's more of a historic oddity. Similarly, Basilisk II is a very worthy emulator for Mac 68k emula…

Post by poizan42 » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 1:34 PM UTC

cjd8 wrote: post #15

matheusmoreira wrote: post #14

Genesis does what Nintendon't. > The lowly 68000 in the Sega doesn’t have a memory management unit required for the full Linux experience, so what’s really running here is a kernel compiled with the -nommu option. Huh... I thought Linux actually required MMUs. I was under the impression it'd never run on these old consoles because of that. Learned something new today. > A QEMU fork that emulates enough of the MegaDri…

>Huh... I thought Linux actually required MMUs. I was under the impression it'd never run on these old consoles because of that. Learned something new today. There have been variants of the kernel around for some time that can run on microcontrollers without an MMU (mainly uCLinux).