Linux on the Atari Jaguar

#1

Post by cakehonolulu » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:35 PM UTC

Linux on the Atari Jaguar
cakehonolulu.github.io

Re: Linux on the Atari Jaguar

#2

Post by cakehonolulu » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:35 PM UTC

This is a deep dive on what is necessary to get Linux on the 68000-based Atari Jaguar. No specialized hardware/flash carts. All runs within the original hardware vision (2 megabytes of RAM) and gets to a Busybox shell. Linux repository with the changes: https://github.com/cakehonolulu/linux_jag

Re: Linux on the Atari Jaguar

#3

Post by basilikum » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 8:09 PM UTC

How long does it take to boot?

Re: Linux on the Atari Jaguar

#4

Post by cakehonolulu » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 8:15 PM UTC

basilikum wrote: post #3

How long does it take to boot?

About a minute and a half. It varies by 2~ seconds at most. Could possibly be related to how Linux does the calibrate_delay() stuff? (And well, I'm also not too sure on how deterministic it's supposed to be in terms of time).

Re: Linux on the Atari Jaguar

#5

Post by MPSimmons » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 8:27 PM UTC

cakehonolulu wrote: post #4

basilikum wrote: post #3

How long does it take to boot?

About a minute and a half. It varies by 2~ seconds at most. Could possibly be related to how Linux does the calibrate_delay() stuff? (And well, I'm also not too sure on how deterministic it's supposed to be in terms of time).

Honestly not that far off from my 486 DX2/66 back in the day

Re: Linux on the Atari Jaguar

#6

Post by coupdejarnac » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 8:46 PM UTC

Surely I must have seen someone do this already on Slashdot like 25 years ago. Cheers for using a recent kernel though, that's neat.

Re: Linux on the Atari Jaguar

#7

Post by cakehonolulu » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 8:48 PM UTC

coupdejarnac wrote: post #6

Surely I must have seen someone do this already on Slashdot like 25 years ago. Cheers for using a recent kernel though, that's neat.

Hi! Thanks! Though' I must say that it also helped lots that there's still m68k (Heck, even base 68000) arch code on upstream Linux...!

Re: Linux on the Atari Jaguar

#8

Post by boznz » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 9:05 PM UTC

Still occasionally bring out my old jaguar for Alien vs Predator to try and remember what the excitement was all about, but as to putting Linux on it, amazing effort, but I think I'm going to pass :-)

Re: Linux on the Atari Jaguar

#9

Post by jambalaya8 » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 9:12 PM UTC

cakehonolulu wrote: post #2

This is a deep dive on what is necessary to get Linux on the 68000-based Atari Jaguar. No specialized hardware/flash carts. All runs within the original hardware vision (2 megabytes of RAM) and gets to a Busybox shell. Linux repository with the changes: https://github.com/cakehonolulu/linux_jag

Might be fun to run this as a barebones router.

Re: Linux on the Atari Jaguar

#10

Post by cakehonolulu » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 9:18 PM UTC

jambalaya8 wrote: post #9

cakehonolulu wrote: post #2

This is a deep dive on what is necessary to get Linux on the 68000-based Atari Jaguar. No specialized hardware/flash carts. All runs within the original hardware vision (2 megabytes of RAM) and gets to a Busybox shell. Linux repository with the changes: https://github.com/cakehonolulu/linux_jag

Might be fun to run this as a barebones router.

I've actually thought of that, but the memory space is so limited that I feel it'd be impossible. Also considering the fact that no official memory banking solutions exist for the Jaguar... maybe it'd be an interesting technical challenge to have a custom mapper that can do both ROM and RAM.