Workstations
PA-RISC Linux supports all HP PA-RISC workstations. Not everything is
perfectly functional - but nearly all of it works. The unlettered 700-series
workstations (eg 712/715/735) and the B/C/J class machines (eg B132L, Tadpole B160L laptop, C180L,
C200, C3000, J5000) systems are supported. Fast-Wide Differential SCSI does
not work on 735 or 755 (but does on other machiines).
Most standard HP graphic cards work (Visualize-EG, Artist, HCRX, ...) in 8 and 24bpp modes.
Support for the Vis-FX series is still missing. A few issues remain with Frame Buffer (graphics support)
on some machines (eg C3000/J5000) with a 64bit Linux Kernel but are being worked on.
PA-RISC VME boards are based on workstation designs.
PA-RISC Linux does boot on a 743.
Search the mailing list archive
to see if your workstation (or server) has any known problems.
Please submit bugs (or patches!) for missing/broken functionality
to the parisc-linux mailing list.
Servers
The earliest PA-RISC servers have proprietary HP devices attached to
proprietary HP bus architectures. Documentation on these busses and
devices will not become available soon since no one in HP is finding,
"scrubbing", and releasing the docs.
Machines in this category are the F, G, H, I class (aka Nova) and
T500 series (Emerald) machines as well as some earlier, unlettered servers.
The T600 is unlikely to ever be supported. Though T600 uses some of
the same GSC devices (eg card-mode Dino 100BT, Zalon FWD SCSI) as
K-class, T600 has the Java I/O MMU, instead of U2, which is NOT I/O
coherent. Linux PCI drivers require I/O coherency.
Support for the E class is being pursued. Similar to K class in some
ways, it requires the Mux driver for console and does not yet have SCSI
or Centronics support. Network support is the same as 712. GSC add-in
cards should work, HP-PB cards will not yet.
The D, K and R class machines are at least partially supported.
These machines are architecturally similar to the older B, C and J
class workstations and share most of the I/O devices, busses (GSC)
and processors. The console on K class and the optional console card on
D/R class are now supported. Most of the other HP-PB (aka NIO) devices
aren't supported due to lack of documentation -- the same documentation
which makes the Nova/Emerald machines unsupportable.
The A180, L1000/2000/3000, N4000, and A400/A500 servers are supported.
Support for Superdome will someday follow but requires some
additional VM work which is in progress.
People ask about V-class. V-class has a very different architecture
from other HP machines. See the
Server Architecture Reference
for details. One major known problem with supporting V-class is
the complexity of its PCI bus adapter (EPIC and SAGA).
Support for the V-class isn't going to happen until some really
masochistic person who has access to a V-class is, uh, challenged by this.
A list of currently supported hardware is maintained by the ESIEE Team, you
should take a look here for any
precise material.
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