With more and more Linux distributions – as well as the kernel itself – dropping support for more exotic, often dead architectures, it’s a blessing T2 Linux exists. This unique, source-based Linux distribution focuses on making it as easy as possible to build a Linux installation tailored to your needs, and supports an absolutely insane amount of architectures and platforms. In fact, calling T2 a “distribution” does it a bit of a disservice, since it’s much more than that.
You may have noticed the banner at the top of OSNews, and if we somehow – unlikely! -manage to reach that goal before the two remaining new-in-box HP c8000 PA-RISC workstations on eBay are sold, my plan is indeed to run HP-UX as my only operating system for a week, because I like inflicting pain on myself. However, I also intend to use that machine to see just how far T2 Linux on PA-RISC can take me, and if it can make a machine like the c8000, which is plenty powerful with its two dual-core 1.0Ghz PA-RISC processors, properly useful in 2024.
T2 Linux 24.12 has just been released, and it brings with it the latest versions of the Linux kernel, gcc, LLVM/Clang, and so on. With T2 Linux, which describes itself as a System Development Environment, it’s very easy to spin up a heavily customised Linux installation fit for your purpose, targeting anything from absolutely resource-starved embedded systems to big hunks of, I don’t know, SPARC or POWER metal. If you’ve got hardware with a processor in it, you can most likely build T2 for it. The project also provides a large number of pre-built ISOs for a whole slew of supported architectures, sometimes further divided into glibc or musl, so you can quickly get started even without having to build something yourself.
It’s an utterly unique project that deserves more attention than it’s getting, especially since it seems to be one of the last Linux “distributions” that takes supporting weird platforms out-of-the-box seriously. Think of it as the NetBSD of the Linux world, and I know for a fact that there’s a very particular type of person to whom that really appeals.
I had an old DEC Alpha machine. I am afraid now that I got rid of it thinking that Alpha Linux was truly dead. Seeing this, I want to dust it off again and give it a go!
There is an old Sun Ultra in the garage as well as an SGI Indy. Perhaps I should give one of those a try.
You probably don’t want a C8000 if you intend to run anything other than HP-UX. If you want HP-UX and Linux/BSD, you’d be much better off with a C3750 or something like that. I also still have a B2000 that is looking for a good home, but nobody wanted it for many years :(.
Actually, I would say these days the C8000 is well, if not the best supported. Certainly better than the older ones where you mostly had quite unsupported HP Visualize FX graphics. And you defiantly want the top CPUs for modern application performance. The C8000 usually came with a ATi Radeon graphic, so X works – albei unaccelerated right now in T2/Linux. Fixing Radeon EXA and Mesa3d accelerated and thus also Wayland compatible is high on my TODO for 2025. Maybe a simple one or few-lines (e.g. cache or memory barrier change) as the CP ring-buffer tests fail early and instantly. https://t2sde.org/hardware/desktop/HP/c8000/
None of the BSDs work at all on the C8000, so it’s good at least Linux support got a bit better apparently. However, if the goal is to tinker and try different OSes, I would still go with the C3750 over the C8000. And the C3750 can also be acquired for very reasonable prices :).
Good luck with your quest to run a PA-RISC HP-UX machine (for at least a week apparently – have fun finding a modern Web browser for it…) – the big question is can the donation target be reached before HP-UX completely EOLs on 31st December 2025?