Someone took advantage of Linux’s 68000 CPU compatibility using an Atari Jaguar.

The Linux kernel is one of those weird things where you didn’t know what kind of hardware it supported until said support was dropped. For example, I didn’t know that The kernel supported the i386 processor until Linux 7.1 removed it.

Fortunately, the Linux kernel does it still supports the Motorola 68000 series of processors, meaning you can still run it on some really cool hardware. For example, it is entirely possible to install Linux on an Atari Jaguar.

Getting Linux on an Atari Jaguar is surprisingly possible

And it’s all thanks to legacy compatibility

Credit: cakehonolulu

As seen HackadayCakehonolulu has demonstrated how they managed to run Linux’s Atari Jaguar their blog. Cakehonolulu begins by introducing the Atari Jaguar, a commercial disaster released in 1993. While the console’s history is an issue, Cakehonolulu pointed out that the Jaguar’s 68000 CPU isn’t as unsupported by modern software as you might think:

Interestingly, to date, Linux has the architecture code for the 68000 processor family. 68040, 68030, 68010… and even the original base 68000 processor. All neatly organized under arch/m68k/.

As an improvement, the Motorola 68000 was a CISC processor with mixed 16-32-bit capabilities (typically described as 32-bit internally due to the length of the register width and 16-bit because the data bus is 16-bit, so 2 bytes are transferred at a time).

With a lot of tweaking and tweaking Linux to Jaguar hardware, Cakehonolulu managed to get the kernel running on the old console. It’s not exactly pretty (you can see a screenshot of it above), but it’s still a nice reminder of why it’s important to keep these old drivers around. If you have a spare Atari console in the attic, you can also run Linux on the project. GitHub page.