Linux on the Atari Jaguar

(cakehonolulu.github.io)

73 points | by cakehonolulu 2 hours ago

4 comments

  • cakehonolulu 2 hours ago
    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
    • jambalaya8 20 minutes ago
      Might be fun to run this as a barebones router.
      • cakehonolulu 15 minutes ago
        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.
  • boznz 27 minutes ago
    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 :-)
    • cakehonolulu 13 minutes ago
      Not that I blame you... in comparison with pretty much the rest of cartridge-based systems, the available flash cart is priced higher (And AFAIK no DIY open-source ones exist). AvP is one of the best games to play on the system, it was future technology at the time it came out.
  • coupdejarnac 47 minutes ago
    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.
    • cakehonolulu 44 minutes ago
      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...!
  • basilikum 1 hour ago
    How long does it take to boot?
    • cakehonolulu 1 hour ago
      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).
      • MPSimmons 1 hour ago
        Honestly not that far off from my 486 DX2/66 back in the day