Porting an operating system is a complex task requiring infrastructure such as compilers, debuggers, and libraries.
Digital's Alpha Migration Tools Group ported Linux to the DEC Alpha with goals: free, resource-efficient, high performance, source compatibility, and fast schedule.
Initial port used Linux 1.0 code base, 32-bit implementation, existing Digital Unix PALcode and SRM firmware.
Designed a 32-bit address space with partitions to avoid user-kernel collisions: user, unused, kernel VM, mini-KSEG, kernel code/data/stack.
Used Cygnus-modified GCC for 32-bit Alpha code, cross-compilation on Digital Unix and Intel Linux.
Debugging was done on an Alpha instruction simulator (ISP) before using real hardware.
Developed a bootloader in stages: first simple, then with ext2 filesystem support, then compressed kernel loading.
The Fujitsu Lifebook U729 runs Linux flawlessly with all hardware working out of the box.
The only difficulty was disabling Secure Boot, which required installing Windows 11, updating Fujitsu drivers and BIOS via DeskUpdate, then disabling it in the new BIOS.
The laptop comes with Absolute Persistence spyware, which can be disabled in the BIOS.
The laptop is lightweight (1.1kg), solid, has good keyboard, good battery life, and offers excellent value at 250 AUD.
It works well with NixOS; tested features include WiFi, Bluetooth, sound, display brightness, touchscreen, and webcam.
Official Google Chrome build is now available for Arm64 Linux devices, including the Raspberry Pi, after being promised in March.
The Arm64 builds were added to Google's official Linux repos for Debian and RPM-based distributions; installation works by replacing 'amd64' with 'arm64' in the download URL.
The native Arm64 Chrome includes Google account sync and a bundled Widevine DRM module for media playback, but DRM is limited to software-based (720p/1080p) without 4K or HDR.
Performance on Raspberry Pi 5: YouTube 1080p and 2K play smoothly, 4K suffers due to hardware limits; BBC iPlayer works well compared to Firefox Snap.
There is no official announcement yet, and the Chrome support pages do not mention Arm64 Linux support, so users should consider it possibly in testing.
The build is available as a .deb package for Debian/Ubuntu and likely an RPM for Fedora; future updates will come through standard repos.