MIPS/Linux Resources

[When this web site was first created, in 1998, MIPS Linux resources on the web were relatively hard to find.  Things have evolved considerably since then, but as this page comes up in search engines, I'll keep it alive, but lean.]

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.

Paralogos has been intimately involved in MIPS Linux development for a number of years, having done the initial port of Linux to the first MIPS32 4Kc cores in the late 1990's,  the integration of the FPU emulator with the kernel, and the design and implementation of the SMTC Linux kernel for MIPS MT multithreaded cores.

MIPS Linux Kernels

For MIPS Linux kernels, the resource of reference is linux-mips.org and its associated mailing list.  The kernel.org site, which provides the closest thing the Linux community has to a "reference" Linux, now only trails linux-mips.org by a few months. 

MIPS Linux Binaries

There are several collections of "userland" binaries for MIPS/Linux, some based on Debian, others 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". There's a pretty good compendium or resources on the linux-mips.org site.

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

Last update: March 15, 2009.