MIPS/Linux Resources

MIPS CPUs were designed from the beginning with UNIX in mind, and MIPS-based workstations and servers have run just about every flavour of UNIX ever written - ATT, BSD, Mach, and of course Linux.  There are still a lot of MIPS-based workstations and servers out there, many of them orphaned by their manufacturers but still servicable.  And there are many more consumer and embedded platforms being built around MIPS CPUs.  Linux provides an open-sourced OS solution for both sorts of systems.

MIPS Linux Kernels

The kernel.org site, which provides the closest thing the Linux community has to "reference" kernels,  does provide kernel sources with support for some MIPS CPUs and systems, but a lot of good MIPS kernel work is not yet in those distributions.

MIPS Technologies, Inc. has made available a set of kernel sources, based on the 2.2  kernel, which has been cleaned up, hardened,  and enhanced to support the latest generation of 32-bit MIPS CPUs, and which features an integrated version of the Algorithmics MIPS FPU emulator. Click here to access the top-level MIPS Linux directory on the MIPS Technologies server.  Under "kernel" you can find ready-to-load kernel images for the MIPS Atlas development board, and gzipped tar archive of the associated kernel sources, which support the MIPS Atlas and Algorithmics P-5064 development board in both big and little-endian modes, as well as the big-endian SGI Indy workstation.  The src directory also contains patch files for the differences between the MIPS Technologies kernel and the kernel.org distributions.  The current patches are relative to the 2.2.12 release at kernel.org.  Note that earlier versions of these sources were made available on the Paralogos FTP server.  Paralogos will continue making snapshots and patches to the MIPS Linux kernel available, but we will *not* be mirroring the full MIPS site.

SGI has supported a substantial effort to put Linux on their hardware platforms, including the MIPS-based workstations and servers.  The repository at the SGI Linux site is the main coordination point for 2.3.x kernel developemnt for MIPS processors, which will ultimately support multiprocessor and 64-bit SGI/MIPS systems.  The SGI repository is usually in a state of flux, so be forewarned that on a given day, the latest contents may not be buildable or runnable.  

At the opposite end of the target device spectrum, Linux VR and Linux CE are projects to put Linux on handheld MIPS-based devices.  Brad LaRonde's Linux-MIPS pages pull together a lot of information on running Linux on MIPS-based plamtop computers.

MIPS Linux Binaries

There are several collections of "userland" binaries for MIPS/Linux, most of them based on various Red Hat releases.  Big-endain and little-endian systems require different sets of binaries.  Big-endian binaries are denoted as "mipseb" or often simply "mips", while little-endian packages are generally denoted as "mipsel". 

The SGI Linux site contains what is probably the best available collection of big-endian binaries, most of them corresponding to the Red Hat 5.1 "Manhattan" release.  Little-endian binaries are a bit more scattered, with some having been built for MIPS-based DECstation workstations and others having been built for the Cobalt Networks web servers.  The SGI Linux ftp site has a good collection of mipsel 5.1 binaries.  The Cleveland Linux Users Group site has some newer versions of mipsel binaries than SGI, as well as a few packages that the SGI site is missing. The Paralogos compilation of mipsel RPMS contains the lastest known versions of anything on either site.  Some more recent versions of Red Hat (6.0 and 6.1) have been partially ported to little-endian MIPS platforms, and can be accessed at the site of the Bonn Linux Users Group in Germany.  There are also people working on a Debian port, some of which can be accessed here.

The MIPS Technologies FTP server has both big and little-endian installation kits for the "Manhattan" Red Hat release.  These are large (250MB) compressed tar archives, designed to be unpacked onto an NFS server.  The filesystem is configured so that an initial NFS boot will cause a Linux install to a hard disk on the target platform.  These installations were engineered for the MIPS Atlas board, but should work just as well on any MIPS platform with a serial console, an ethernet port, and a hard disk.  The installation procedure is explained in the INSTALL file in the installation FTP directory, or here in HTML.  Test versions of these files were made available on the Paralogos server, but will not be maintained there indefinitely.

Other MIPS/Linux Resources

The usenet newsgroutp comp.sys.mips is sometimes rather quiet, but it exists and is widely propagated.  There is an SGI/Linux FAQ that contains a wealth of useful information and pointers, as well as a less well maintained Linux/MIPS FAQ.  The principal MIPS/Linux mailing lists are linux-mips@fnet.fr and linux@cthulhu.engr.sgi.com, the latter being mostly concerned with Linux on SGI platforms.

If you have additions or corrections to this page, please ontact KevinK@paralogos.com.

Last update: April 7, 2000.