Welcome to the Linux/VAX porting project. This is a port of the Linux Kernel to the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) (now owned by Compaq/Hewlett Packard) VAX and MicroVAX mini computer systems. VAX (Virtual Address eXtension) computers were designed and built from the mid-1970s through to retirement of the line in 1999/2000.

Here you will find all you need to get the Linux Kernel up and running on a VAX computer. We don't support many of the models yet, and it is very early days - we don't (at the time of writing) have dynamic libraries yet! But if you have one of the systems listed in the FAQ you can run a limited version of Linux on it. See the Documentation link for details on the installation process. However, its very rough at the moment, and you need to be very comfortable with the command line and root prompt to be successful.

If you don't like the idea of that, then we suggest that you visit our friends over at the NetBSD project at http://www.netbsd.org/ who make a free UNIX that runs on a wide variety of VAX hardware. NetBSD has a much easier installation, not to mention fewer bugs (at the moment...).

Still here?

You might like to join the Mailing list if you are serious about this...

The mailing list is somewhat imaginatively titled linux-vax. To subscribe, please visit http://www.pergamentum.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-vax. This is the Mailman interface for our list. Because the list used to life on a different machine, there are currently two archives, the old one at http://solar.physics.montana.edu/hypermail/linux-vax/ and the new one, which belongs to the mailing list mentioned above at http://www.pergamentum.com/pipermail/linux-vax/. They'll be merged soon, though.

Additionally, you could subscribe to the CVS checkin mailing list for Kernel (archive), toolchain (archive) and userland tools (archive).

This project would like to acknowledge the support of the following companies or organisations: