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Linux on the Atari Jaguar

cakehonolulu.github.io

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Re: Linux on the Atari Jaguar

#41

Post by hogehoge51 »

Someone wrote: post #27
hogehoge51 wrote: post #17

> The Motorola 68000 > Overall, it got lots of traction commercially; it .... Before ARM the m68k was possibly the most deployed processor architecture in history. In the late 1990s it was in printers, cars, personal digital assistants, erc, as well as all the home computers, arcades and unix workstations it found it's way into in the 1980s and early 1990s. It's sucessor, the Coldfire, could have taken ARMs place...…

> Before ARM the m68k was possibly the most deployed processor architecture in history My money would be on something smaller such as the 8051 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_MCS-51 ) Also, between m68k and ARM there was PowerPC. It got used a lot in embedded systems. Because “the newer the car, the more microprocessors it has”, chances are it got used more than m68k. FWIW, Google’s AI gives me: - for the m68k:…

Yeah, 8051 wins, it was and still is in everything (sdcards, sim cards, cables, ports...). I may have some trauma from spending too much time with Keil's 8051 C compiler that made me forget it.

But I still think 68k was king of that era for discrete CPU's that could go anywhere, and run a high level OS/complex software, before the MCU and then SoC era came and stole m68k's crown.

Sure, PPC took the m68k's role of discrete CPU in automotive, aerospace, networking and consoles for a while, but I don't think it is the king.

Back to TFA, I think the m68k got a bit more than just "commercial traction"! Which is why it will hopefully stay in the kernel for a long time.

Re: Linux on the Atari Jaguar

#42

Post by manytimesaway »

rbanffy wrote: post #36
cakehonolulu wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I basically wrote them down as they came to my mind, but I agree. I'm still waiting to find a decently priced Falcon 030...

> Falcon 030 Get a TT and make it your daily driver with Atari Unix. About the list, the 68000 and its descendants ended up in most of the Unix/technical workstation and small mini computer market before everyone moved to RISC (Sun to SPARC, HP to PA, and so on).

Good luck finding a TT030 cheaper than a Falcon030...

Re: Linux on the Atari Jaguar

#43

Post by nommuenjoyer »

This is very cool. I thought literally no one else was using/interested in the 68000 support in the kernel. It was actually subtly broken for a long time. I think the fixes I did went in to 7.0 or 7.1..

I have some potential performance fixes for linuxmd like optimizing the multiplication that happens each time the kernel time infra needs to be updated. Would be cool to see if they help for you too and then get a "Tested-by" on the patch to mainline.

Re: Linux on the Atari Jaguar

#44

Post by bni »

I think this is very impressive. I remember from eons ago people were running Linux on Amiga, but then it was the later models with 68040 processors with more RAM.

As far as I remember no one ran it on a 68000 with 2 megabytes of RAM.

Could Linux today run on an Amiga 500 with RAM expansion, in this same way?

Re: Linux on the Atari Jaguar

#45

Post by cakehonolulu »

nommuenjoyer wrote: post #43

This is very cool. I thought literally no one else was using/interested in the 68000 support in the kernel. It was actually subtly broken for a long time. I think the fixes I did went in to 7.0 or 7.1.. I have some potential performance fixes for linuxmd like optimizing the multiplication that happens each time the kernel time infra needs to be updated. Would be cool to see if they help for you too and then get a "Te…

Hi! Thanks for all your work honestly, I saw the patches and most (If not all...) were necessary to boot the kernel.

As for the mainline stuff: Sure! May I reach out to see how I can help?

Re: Linux on the Atari Jaguar

#46

Post by cakehonolulu »

bni wrote: post #44

I think this is very impressive. I remember from eons ago people were running Linux on Amiga, but then it was the later models with 68040 processors with more RAM. As far as I remember no one ran it on a 68000 with 2 megabytes of RAM. Could Linux today run on an Amiga 500 with RAM expansion, in this same way?

Hi! Glad you liked it.

In theory it should be possible I think?

I don't exactly recall the memory differences (Chip RAM vs Fast RAM and all that) but assuming you have enough Chip/Fast RAM and thereabout of a megabyte in a storage medium for the actual kernel binary; I don't see why it should not be possible.

If WHDLoad is a thing on base 500/500+ then you'd be able to fit more stuff on the "userspace" side of things, since 1.44 megs can't really hold much (And having to swap floppies in the way Workbench does it is not something I'm sure can be done on Linux).

The main issue I see is that you'd probably need to "free" up memory by unloading Workbench (If it's loaded) and possibly re-configuring the hardware (So it's in a known good state for Linux), but yeah; it should honestly be feasible.

Re: Linux on the Atari Jaguar

#47

Post by vidarh »

Someone wrote: post #27
hogehoge51 wrote: post #17

> The Motorola 68000 > Overall, it got lots of traction commercially; it .... Before ARM the m68k was possibly the most deployed processor architecture in history. In the late 1990s it was in printers, cars, personal digital assistants, erc, as well as all the home computers, arcades and unix workstations it found it's way into in the 1980s and early 1990s. It's sucessor, the Coldfire, could have taken ARMs place...…

> Before ARM the m68k was possibly the most deployed processor architecture in history My money would be on something smaller such as the 8051 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_MCS-51 ) Also, between m68k and ARM there was PowerPC. It got used a lot in embedded systems. Because “the newer the car, the more microprocessors it has”, chances are it got used more than m68k. FWIW, Google’s AI gives me: - for the m68k:…

Western Design Centre also claims over 6 billion 6502 compatible cores:

https://www.westerndesigncenter.com/wdc/about_us.php

Re: Linux on the Atari Jaguar

#48

Post by vidarh »

hogehoge51 wrote: post #41
Someone wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Before ARM the m68k was possibly the most deployed processor architecture in history My money would be on something smaller such as the 8051 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_MCS-51 ) Also, between m68k and ARM there was PowerPC. It got used a lot in embedded systems. Because “the newer the car, the more microprocessors it has”, chances are it got used more than m68k. FWIW, Google’s AI gives me: - for the m68k:…

Yeah, 8051 wins, it was and still is in everything (sdcards, sim cards, cables, ports...). I may have some trauma from spending too much time with Keil's 8051 C compiler that made me forget it. But I still think 68k was king of that era for discrete CPU's that could go anywhere, and run a high level OS/complex software, before the MCU and then SoC era came and stole m68k's crown. Sure, PPC took the m68k's role of dis…

The 65xx series outsold the 68k by several magnitudes. One might argue about how complex OS's it could run, but e.g. GEOS shows 65xx based designs could go quite far.

Re: Linux on the Atari Jaguar

#49

Post by UncleSlacky »

rob74 wrote: post #31

> Biggest contenders are the original Macintosh (And Apple Lisa), the Commodore Amiga series of computers (With varying generations of the 68000), the Sega Genesis/Megadrive, the Neo-Geo AES, Plexus workstations... and the Jaguar. Strange that they mention almost all well-known 68k machines, but forget the (extremely relevant in this case) Atari ST...

Also, honourable mention for the Sinclair QL (though it was a 68008 machine).

Re: Linux on the Atari Jaguar

#50

Post by roygbiv2 »

bni wrote: post #44

I think this is very impressive. I remember from eons ago people were running Linux on Amiga, but then it was the later models with 68040 processors with more RAM. As far as I remember no one ran it on a 68000 with 2 megabytes of RAM. Could Linux today run on an Amiga 500 with RAM expansion, in this same way?

I've been slowly working on getting fuzix working on my amiga 1200. It boots the kernel I just don't have a file system for it yet. Though my 1200 has ~10MB RAM.
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