T2 Linux SDE 24.12 'Sky's the Limit!' Released With 37 ISOs For 25 CPU ISAs

Berlin-based T2 Linux developer René Rebe is also long-time Slashdot reader ReneR — and popped by with a special announcement for the holidays: The T2 Linux team has unveiled T2 Linux SDE 24.12, codenamed "Sky's the Limit!", delivering a massive update for this highly portable source-based Linux distribution... With 3,280 package updates, 206 new features, and the ability to boot on systems with as little as 512MB RAM, this release further strengthens T2 Linux's position as the ultimate tool for developers working across diverse hardware and embedded systems.
Some highlights from Rene's announcement:

• "The release includes 37 pre-compiled ISOs with Glibc, Musl, and uClibc, supporting 25 CPU architectures like ARM(64), RISCV(64), Loongarch64, SPARC(64), and vintage retro computing platforms such as M68k, Alpha, and even initial Nintendo Wii U support added."

• " The Cosmic Desktop, a modern Rust-based environment, debuts alongside expanded application support for non-mainstream RISC architectures, now featuring LibreOffice, OpenJDK, and QEMU."

And T2sde.org gives this glimpse of the future:

"While initially created for the Linux kernel, T2 already has proof-of-concept support for building 'home-brew' pkg for Other OS, including: BSDs, macOS and Haiku. Work on alternative micro kernels, such as L4, Fuchsia, RedoxOS or integrating building 'AOSP' Android is being worked on as well."

"little"

[dmitrygr]

"as *LITTLE* as 512MB of RAM" get off my lawn!

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it's cute. NetBSD will boot on a M68k with as little at 10MB RAM.

Re: "little"

[AcidFnTonic]

Yeah, I felt the same on that one.

I remember playing unreal tournament at LAN parties with 256mb and being jealous of my friends recently upgraded machine with 512mb that ran smooth.

This makes me feel super old now.

Re:

[Petersko]

Well, I can make you feel a bit younger. I was the envy of the lan party group with 16mb of ram on my 486dx2-66. C&C: Red Alert and Total Annihilation were on the menu. :)

Re:

[Jeremi]

Real OS's [generationamiga.com] boot to the desktop on systems with as little as 512KB of RAM :)

Re: "little"

[vbdasc]

I can remember installing Debian 2.1 on my home PC with 4Mb of RAM.

Re: "little"

[vbdasc]

But did it run Linux?

Re:

[bn-7bc]

no for at least one reason, Linux was not a thing at that time (Initial release september 17 1991), and the TRS-80 was discontinued in 1981, and 50K of ram

Re:

[vbdasc]

I expected you to say that the TRS-80 model 16 could run Xenix.

Re:

[ReneR]

Yes, but three decades of bloat blew up every binary on the way an order of magnitude or two. From the libc, to the shell, not to mention udev or god forbid systemd or needed some extra ram for a tons of optional maybe needed drivers in a initrd. I booted T2 on an just 8MB RAM i386dx40 some years ago though just for run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

Re:

[ReneR]

Well, technically it is more like 96MB or even 64MB when you use the more minimal mini initrd. My SPARCstation 2 also boots T2 SPARC Linux w/ as little as 32MB but then it starts to use some 3MB of swap when booted to the login prompt. I put 512MB into the press release as I did not wanted to raise too many eyebrowns. One certainly could squeeze this further down, but mostly it is not really needed. Compiling a custom kernel w/o initrd reduces this quite a bit down to below 32MB though.

To clarify:

[greytree]

"TLC Linux TLC 24.12 released with 37 TLCs for 25 TLC TLCs"

FTFY

And once again....

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

And once again, as I usually do with these fresh-from-the-compiler distros, I have to ask: what does T2 Linux have that might be a compelling reason to switch to it from some other distro, for example, Mint?

The Cosmic desktop looks nice, but that's not enough of a reason.

What features, enhancements, or other bits does it have that would make someone consider switching over to it?

Re:

[ReneR]

Well, T2/Linux mainly started as an all CPUs supporting System Development Environment mostly for embedded systems and firmware. It is basically like Buildroot or Linux From Scratch fully automated and on steroids. Common users include Access Points, Firewalls, Telephone or LTE switches, NAS, virtualization, or having fun on vintage and retro game consoles and of course prosumers on their home servers and workstations. The benefit is that T2 is not a fixed distributions like most of the others, but you can

Re:

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I appreciate the reply.

With that said, I'm still trying to figure out what T2 Linux has that might be a compelling reason for me or others to switch to it.

Sounds like it has some useful features, but pretend you were trying to sell me on switching to T2....what would the sales pitch be? In short, why should/would I switch, what would I gain in terms of a more-or-less regular user?

Re:

[ReneR]

I thought real trans 3 T2/Linux ;-)

Re:

[OolimPhon]

T2 Linux seems to be all about running Linuix on Apple hardware.

Re:

[ReneR]

No, the people who do patches for T2 Apple hardware ignored that T2 SDE did T2/Linux since ~2003-ish and just clobbered over our work by registering t2linux.org which we did not thought to reserve, creating this mess. We have https://t2linux.com/ [t2linux.com] though and Apple T2 chip was never too amazing, longed after and pretty obsolete.

Re:

[ReneR]

All are tested on real hardware ;-) https://www.instagram.com/p/DB... [instagram.com] regularly on my YT and Twitch channel https://youtube.com/morerenere... [youtube.com] https://twitch.tv/t2sde [twitch.tv]

I thought

[vbdasc]

that Linux dropped Alpha support recently, no?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

No.
Support was dropped for "old DEC Alpha EV5 platforms and earlier."

Not all Alpha systems.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/... [phoronix.com]