this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I thought their old PowerPc architecture was risc
Indeed it was. Different RISC ISA though.
This is for my own clarification, and anyone else that is confused by the terminology here.
In the mid- or late 1990s, I took a processor design class, and RISC was "Reduced Instruction Set Computer", a generic term for the direction processors were going at the time - even though they had a reduced set of instructions, and therefore had to process more instructions, they could run faster overall because the simplification meant they processed each individual instruction that much more quickly. (IIRC the class textbook was written by the people who had designed the MIPS processor.)
It was my understanding that the speed limitations in the traditional "complex" (CISC) processors were then overcome, so that processor design philosophy continues as well (in particular, x86 architecture is still CISC).
Now, I'm looking this up on Wikipedia: Okay, RISC-V is a set of instructions for a processor, and there are multiple open-source processors that implement RISC-V.
This announcement is that Debian now will theoretically run on those processors. Cool!