Although it was famously started by Linus Torvalds as ”a (free) operating system (just a hobby, will not be as big and professional as GNU) for 386 (486) AT clones“, The Linux kernel and surrounding operating systems ecosystems have been transferred to numerous architectures beyond their x86 roots. So it’s not uncommon to hear of new ports for unsupported platforms, but it’s extremely unexpected to hear of one if the platform is a mid-nineties game console. But this is what [Lauri Kasanen] did, and announced a new Linux port for the Nintendo 64.
It’s also not a Linux from 1996. The port builds on an updated core version 5.10 with its N64 branch and a tempting possibility that it could be included in the main source of Linux for the MIPS-64 processor architecture. That’s right, the Nintendo 64 may be an officially supported Linux platform.
It would go a long way in telling the story to call it any kind of distro, because what he produced is a bootloader that loads the kernel and creates a terminal with a busy box. With this on your flash card, you will not be replacing the Raspberry Pi anytime soon, so why not [Lauri]se “because i canWould you be interested in that? He gives the answer and it lies in the emulation scene, because using a Linux for the platform makes it so much easier to transfer other software there. If that excites you, you can see the source in its GitHub repository, and we’re definitely looking forward to what the community will do with it.
We are more accustomed to seeing the N64 as a subject for business processing, whether it is as a handheld or an all-in-one console.
Via Phoronix, and thank you [David Beckershoff] for the hint.
Headline: Evan-Amos, public domain.