{"id":275639,"date":"2026-06-19T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/19\/running-modern-linux-on-a-68008\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T04:05:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T08:05:23","slug":"running-modern-linux-on-a-68008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/19\/running-modern-linux-on-a-68008\/","title":{"rendered":"Running Modern Linux On A 68008"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2026\/06\/19\/running-modern-linux-on-a-68008\/\/\">Running Modern Linux On A 68008<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2026\/06\/19\/running-modern-linux-on-a-68008\/\/\">https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2026\/06\/19\/running-modern-linux-on-a-68008\/\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-06-19 04:00:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"hackaday.com\">hackaday.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Linux developers have been trimming the fluff in recent years, removing support for older processors that hardly anyone uses with a modern kernel anymore. With that said, it\u2019s possible to run the latest kernel on some truly old metal. As a case in point, [Colin Maykish] just got it going on a Motorola 68008!<\/p>\n<p>The rig in question is a Mackerel-68k\u2014a homebrew single-board computer built around Motorola\u2019s famous 68000 CPU line. This version in particular is running a 68008 rated at 8 MHz, though it\u2019s overclocked to 14 MHz for a little more pep, and has just 3.5 MB of RAM. Despite these limitations, the board can run the mainline v7.1-rc6 kernel, booting into userspace and providing a very minimalistic BusyBox shell. Booting is slow, and doing much more than that is impossible without running out of RAM, but it\u2019s an impressive feat nonetheless. [Colin] has also had the 68010 and 68030 chips running the kernel, too.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve previously discussed efforts to bring Linux into the future while leaving old chips behind. Video after the break.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Motorola 68008 Booting Mainline Linux (v7.1-rc6)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yj4O34fRQaU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2026\/06\/19\/running-modern-linux-on-a-68008\/\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Running Modern Linux On A 68008 https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2026\/06\/19\/running-modern-linux-on-a-68008\/\/ Publish Date: 2026-06-19 04:00:00 Source Domain: hackaday.com Linux&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":275640,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/maxresdefault-9-e1781772682336.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[71],"class_list":["post-275639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-linux","tag-linux"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275639"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275639"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":275641,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275639\/revisions\/275641"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}