User:Linux o'Linus/Draft of Arch Linux ARM article

Arch Linux ARM is a port of Arch Linux for ARM processors. Its design philosophy is "simplicity and full control to the end user," and like its parent operating system Arch Linux, aims to be very Unix-like. This goal of simplicity and complete user control, however, can make Arch Linux ARM difficult for Linux beginners. Arch Linux ARM is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2, being free and open source code.

History and Development
Arch Linux ARM is based off of Arch Linux, a minimalist Linux distribution first released on March 11, 2002. The idea of making a single, official port of Arch Linux for devices with ARM processors was born from members of the Arch Linux PlugApps and ArchMobile development teams, notably Mike Staszel, who went on to found the Arch Linux ARM project. Kevin Mihelich is currently Arch Linux ARM's primary developer. Arch Linux ARM is community developed, with software development and user support provided fully by volunteer effort and donations. Also, unlike other community supported operating systems such as Ubuntu, Arch Linux ARM has a relatively small user base, making user participation in development especially important. Arch Linux ARM has a rolling release cycle, i.e. new software is packaged as it is released. This "bleeding edge" release cycle of small, frequent package updates differs from release cycles of Linux distributions such as Debian, which focus on large, scheduled releases of packages proven to be stable.

Support
Unlike Arch Linux, which is aimed at x86 CPU's (IA-32 and x86-64), Arch Linux ARM is aimed at low- and high-end ARM CPUs. On the low end there is support for ARMv5 platforms like plug computers and OXNAS-based ARMv6 Pogoplugs.

On the higher end, there is support for:


 * ARMv7 first generation Cortex-A8 platforms, such as the BeagleBoard or Cubieboard
 * ARMv7 second generation Cortex-A9 and Tegra platforms, such as the PandaBoard or TrimSlice
 * ARMv7 third generation Cortex-A7 and Cortex-A15 platforms, such as the Cubieboard2, Odroid XU, Samsung Chromebook (series 3) or Samsung Chromebook 2

However, Arch Linux ARM can run on any device that supports ARMv5te, ARMv6h or ARMv7 instruction sets.

For a complete list of officially supported platforms, see archlinuxarm.org's Platforms page. For a list of community-supported devices, see archlinuxarm.org's Community-Supported Devices forum.

External link


Category:ARM Linux distributions