Linux for SPARC64 on QEMU sun4u - System Information

Linux for SPARC

The SPARC processor (Wikipedia) was the third processor to be supported in the Linux kernel (after x86 and Alpha) back in the mid 1990s. In his 1997 M.Sc. thesis: "Linux: a Portable Operating System", Linus Torvalds discussed the integration of Alpha and SPARC into the Linux kernel and the challenges of developing a portable operating system.

Looking for early Linux distributions supporting SPARC finds:

• RedHat Linux 4.0 released 3-Oct-1996: 2.0.18 kernel supporting sun4c and sun4m.
• RedHat Linux 6.0 released 26-Apr-1999: 2.2.5 kernel supporting sun4c, sun4m and sun4u
• Debian Linux 2.1 (slink) released 9-May-1999: 2.0.35 kernel for sun4c and sun4m, and 2.2.1 kernel for sun4u

These Linux distributions were targeted at Sun's SPARC systems and did not support SPARC systems from other vendors, unless they were clones of Sun's systems.

In 1987 Sun Microsystems introduced its first 32-bit based SPARC systems, and Sun introduced its first 64-bit SPARC (UltraSparc) systems in late 1995 with the Ultra 1 and Ultra 2 workstations and their server variants, the Ultra Server 1 and Ultra Server 2.

The 64-bit SPARC specification had been released by SPARC International in 1993 and HAL Computer Systems (Wikipedia), a subsidiary of Fujitsu, brought the first SPARC64 workstations to market in 1995, with the release of the HALstation 300 series systems.

Linux for SPARC64 on QEMU

Linux for SPARC64

Linux is an open source UNIX-like operating system kernel that supports a wide range of platforms. This includes the 64-bit SPARC platforms (sparc64), commonly seen in Sun Microsystems UNIX workstations and servers.

Since SPARC64 processors support both 32-bit and 64-bin SPARC binaries, Linux distributions for SPARC based systems can come in three broad classes:

1. 32-bit kernel with 32-bit user-land - 32-bit & 64-bit SPARC processors
2. 64-bit kernel with 32-bit user-land - 64-bit SPARC processors
3. 64-bit kernel with 64-bit user-land - 64-bit SPARC processors

The Debian Linux distribution has provided for all three of these scenarios with its 'sparc' and 'sparc64' ports:

• Debian for SPARC releases up to and including Debian Linux 4.0 (etch) used a 32-bit kernel or 64-bit kernel with a 32-bit user-land
• Debian for SPARC releases up to and including Debian Linux 7 (wheezy) used a 64-bit kernel with a (mostly) 32-bit user-land
• Debian for SPARC64 current in-official port Debian Linux 10 (buster), which uses a 64-bit kernel with a 64-bit user-land

Since the 'sparc64' in-official port provides the most recent Linux version, and is fully 64-bit and thus provides more of a contrast with the 32-bit Linux environment used in Linux for SPARC (32-bit) on QEMU (sun4m) - System Information, it's our selected target.