LoongArch "Loong64" Added To Debian Ports

In addition to Debian promoting RISC-V to an official CPU architecture for the newly in development Debian 13 cycle, another CPU architecture/port change is adding LoongArch "Loong64" as a new Debian Port.

The LoongArch CPU architecture developed by Chinese vendor Loongson that is based on MIPS64 and inspired by RISC-V has been seeing a lot of open-source work recently. LoongArch support has worked its way into the major compilers, ongoing Linux kernel support, and enablement elsewhere within the open-source ecosystem.

LoongArch has now made its way to the Debian Ports archive mirrors as the latest target. The initial Debian LoongArch bootstrap is around 200 packages while work is still ongoing to make it self-hosting. Once that self-hosting milestone is achieved, Debian plans to begin running Debian package builds on actual LoongArch CPU hardware hosted at Loongson.

Those interested in LoongArch becoming a Debian Port can learn about this initial bring-up via the Debian mailing list.

Today also happens to be Debian Day in marking 30 years since the late Ian Murdock started the Debian Project.