Linux developers have been trimming the fluff in recent years, removing support for older processors that hardly anyone uses with a modern kernel anymore. With that said, it’s possible to run the latest kernel on some truly old metal. As a case in point, [Colin Maykish] just got it going on a Motorola 68008!
The rig in question is a Mackerel-68k—a homebrew single-board computer built around Motorola’s famous 68000 CPU line. This version in particular is running a 68008 rated at 8 MHz, though it’s overclocked to 14 MHz for a little more pep, and has just 3.5 MB of RAM. Despite these limitations, the board can run the mainline v7.1-rc6 kernel, booting into userspace and providing a very minimalistic BusyBox shell. Booting is slow, and doing much more than that is impossible without running out of RAM, but it’s an impressive feat nonetheless. [Colin] has also had the 68010 and 68030 chips running the kernel, too.
We’ve previously discussed efforts to bring Linux into the future while leaving old chips behind. Video after the break.
When I was porting Unix™ to 68000 boards in the early 80s, our base product had a “whopping” 1MByte of ram. It would boot a kernel and load a shell. Anything more started it swapping. The second generation prototype used some of the first 4Mbit DRAM chips when they became available.
just 3.5 MB of RAM
And the original Mac, with its 68000, had just 128 kilobytes.
Admittedly not any sort of unix tho’, and that 128k sorely tested most real users. The Fat Mac (512 kB) released a few months later was more more capable, but even more horrifically expensive.
… and the monolithic tord called systemd is more than making up for it.