PowerPC 40x Processor Support To Be Dropped From The Linux Kernel

[phoronix]

Phoronix: PowerPC 40x Processor Support To Be Dropped From The Linux Kernel

In addition to Linux 6.10 expected to drop support for very old DEC Alpha processors (EV5 and earlier), it looks like the PowerPC 40x (early PowerPC 400 series) processor and platform support will be retired too...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/PowerPC-40x-Removal-Patches

[NateHubbard]

Reading what those chips were intended for, I'd be surprised if they ever had any users. Unless someone wanted to run Linux on their original TiVo box, for some reason.

[-MacNuke-]

Reading what those chips were intended for, I'd be surprised if they ever had any users. Unless someone wanted to run Linux on their original TiVo box, for some reason.

There were several custom firmware projects for different set-top-boxes ~20 years ago that used Linux. I used one. For example you were able to stream and record anything from the TV over network to your PC and the other way around. It is nothing fancy by today standards but it was pretty unique at that time.

[timofonic]

Classic Amiga computers had PowerPC accelerators, too...

[uid313]

Good, remove more of these old, unused legacy architectures! 👍

[waxhead]

Classic Amiga computers had PowerPC accelerators, too...

Kind of... The PowerPC CPU was used as a coprocessor which could run in parallel with the main MC680x0 CPU if I remember correctly. E.g. not as a direct MC680x0 CPU replacement/emulator as far as i know.

[Developer12]

There were several custom firmware projects for different set-top-boxes ~20 years ago that used Linux. I used one. For example you were able to stream and record anything from the TV over network to your PC and the other way around. It is nothing fancy by today standards but it was pretty unique at that time.

Still pretty unique. Not a lot that will let you just freely record over the air transmissions anymore.

[Developer12]

Welp, there's always NetBSD.

[MastaG]

Kind of... The PowerPC CPU was used as a coprocessor which could run in parallel with the main MC680x0 CPU if I remember correctly. E.g. not as a direct MC680x0 CPU replacement/emulator as far as i know.

Yes if I'm not mistaken this was the main SoC of the good old Dbox2.
There were many distro's based on tuxbox linux with the enigma or neutrino frontends.
Having it setup with a softcam (and illegal key-server) were good times.

[dragorth]

Kind of... The PowerPC CPU was used as a coprocessor which could run in parallel with the main MC680x0 CPU if I remember correctly. E.g. not as a direct MC680x0 CPU replacement/emulator as far as i know.

That was one use case. However, Amiga OS 4+ also runs on the PPC as the main CPU, as well as an early version of MorphOS, if I remember correctly.