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ARM Publishes 64-bit "AArch64" Linux Kernel Support

Posted by timothy on from the avoiding-the-wrath-of-linus dept.

An anonymous reader writes "ARM Holdings has made available Linux kernel support for AArch64, the ARMv8 64-bit architecture. No 64-bit ARMv8 hardware is yet shipping until later this year, but ARM has prepared the 36 patches amounting to 23,000 lines of architecture code for mainline integration."

3 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. Well done by Lefty2446 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's awesome that a major chip manufacturer is willing to invest time to implement a new architecture in the Linux kernel.

    Pity that windows isn't open sourced, they wont benefit from this effort ;-)

    1. Re:Well done by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This may help though. This means that much less time and investment is needed to get your new device up and running, providing a convincing a convincing case for switching to free software. Had Linux been ported later, this advantage would have been lost.

    2. Re:Well done by beelsebob · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Do you really think Microsoft provides their kernel source to ARM? Do you REALLY think ARM would code hardware support in windows for free?

      Yes, and yes. It's in both their interests to do so, Microsoft's, because it gets them kernel support for a new arch written for free, ARM's because it sells chips (and by extension, chip designs).