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<H2><A NAME="s1">1.</A> <A HREF="User-Group-HOWTO.html#toc1">Introduction</A></H2>
<H2><A NAME="ss1.1">1.1</A> <A HREF="User-Group-HOWTO.html#toc1.1">Purpose</A>
</H2>
<P>The Linux User Group HOWTO is intended to serve as a guide to founding,
maintaining, and growing a GNU/Linux user group.</P>
<P>GNU/Linux is a freely-distributable implementation of Unix for personal
computers, servers, workstations, PDAs, and embedded systems. It was
developed on the i386 and now supports a huge range of processors from
tiny to colossal:</P>
<P>
<UL>
<LI><B>Diverse
<A HREF="http://www.uclinux.org/ports/">PDA / embedded / microcontroller / router</A> devices:</B>
<UL>
<LI>Advanced RISC Machines, Ltd.
<A HREF="http://www.arm.uk.linux.org/">ARM</A> family (StrongARM SA-1110, XScale, ARM6, ARM7, ARM2, ARM250, ARM3i, ARM610, ARM710, ARM720T, and ARM920T, including Sigma Designs DVD systems using ARM cores)</LI>
<LI>Analog Devices, Inc.'s
<A HREF="http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS9596714596.html">Blackfin DSP</A></LI>
<LI>Axis Communications
<A HREF="http://developer.axis.com/software/">ETRAX series</A> ("CRIS" = Code Reduced Instruction Set RISC architecture)</LI>
<LI>Elan SC520 and SC300</LI>
<LI>Fujitsu
<A HREF="http://sources.redhat.com/ecos/hardware.html#FR-V">FR-V</A></LI>
<LI>Hitachi
<A HREF="http://www.uclinux.org/pub/uClinux/ports/h8/">H8</A> series</LI>
<LI>Intel i960</LI>
<LI>Intel IA32-compatibles (Cyrix MediaGX, STMicroelectronics
<A HREF="http://www.stmcu.com/forums-cat-132-6.html">STPC</A>, ZF Micro ZFx86)</LI>
<LI>Matsushita
<A HREF="http://sources.redhat.com/ecos/hardware.html#Matsushita%20AM3x">AM3x</A></LI>
<LI>MIPS-compatibles (Toshiba
<A HREF="http://www.bluecat.com/products/bluecat/bluecatbsp.php3#mips">TMPRxxxx / TXnnnn</A>, NEC
<A HREF="http://www.linux-vr.org/">VR</A> series,
<A HREF="http://www.deakin.edu.au/~btfo/networking/minitar.html">Realtek 8181</A>)</LI>
<LI>Motorola 680x0-based machines (Motorola VMEbus boards,
<A HREF="http://ds.dial.pipex.com/town/way/fr30/">ISICAD Prisma</A> machines, and Motorola
<A HREF="http://www.linuxdevices.com/products/PD5338609592.html">Dragonball</A> &
<A HREF="http://www.uclinux.org/ports/coldfire/">ColdFire</A> CPUs, and Cisco 2500/3000/4000 series routers)</LI>
<LI>Motorola embedded
<A HREF="http://penguinppc.org/embedded/hardware/">PowerPC</A> (including MPC / PowerQUICC I, II, III families)</LI>
<LI>NEC
<A HREF="http://www.ee.nec.de/_uclinux/">V850E</A></LI>
<LI>Renesas Technology (formerly Hitachi) SH3/SH4 (SuperH:
<A HREF="http://www.superhlinux.com/">link1</A>
<A HREF="http://linuxsh.sourceforge.net/">link2</A>)</LI>
<LI>Samsung
<A HREF="http://sources.redhat.com/ecos/hardware.html#CalmRISC">CalmRISC</A></LI>
<LI>Texas Instruments's
<A HREF="http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS3468265897.html">DM64x</A> and
<A HREF="http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9254493853.html">C54x DSP</A> families</LI>
<LI>Xilinx
<A HREF="http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~jwilliams/mblaze-uclinux/">SoftBlaze</A> soft processor implemented on Xilinx FPGAs</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
<LI><B>Intel
<A HREF="http://elks.sourceforge.net/">8086 / 80286</A></B>.</LI>
<LI><B>Intel IA32 family:</B> i386, i486, Pentium, Pentium Pro,
Pentium II, Pentium III, Celeron, Xeon, and Pentium IV processors,
as well as IA32 clones from AMD (386DX/DXL/SL/SLC/SX,
486DX/DX2/DX4/SL/SLC/SLC2/SLC3/SX/SX2, Elan, K5,
K6/K6-II/K6-III), Cyrix (386DX/DXL/SL/SLC/SX,
486DLC/DLC2/DX/DX2/DX4/SL/SLC/SLC2/SLC3/SX/SX2, Cyrix III),
IDT (Winchip, Winchip 2, Winchip 2A/3),
IBM (486DX/DX2/DX4/SL/SLC/SLC2/SLC3/SX/SX2),
NexGen (Nx586), Transmeta (Crusoe),
TI (486DLC/DLC2), UMC (486SX-S, U5D/U5S),
VIA (C3 Ezra "CentaurHauls", C3-2 "Nehemiah"),
and others.</LI>
<LI><B>Intel/HP
<A HREF="http://www.linuxia64.org/">IA64</A>:</B> Trillian, Itanium, Itanium2/McKinley</LI>
<LI><B>x86-64
<A HREF="http://www.x86-64.org/downloads">x86-64</A> family</B>
including AMD Hammer/Opteron/K8/Athlon64 and Intel
Prescott/Nocona/Potomac</LI>
<LI><B>Motorola
<A HREF="http://www.linux-m68k.org/">68020-68040</A> series (with MMU)</B>:
<A HREF="http://www.mac.linux-m68k.org/">m68k Mac</A>,
Amiga, Atari ST/TT/Medusa/Falcon, HP/Apollo Domain,
<A HREF="http://www.tazenda.demon.co.uk/phil/linux-hp/">HP9000/300</A>,
<A HREF="http://sun3.sammy.net/sun3/">sun3</A>, and
<A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Bay/2602/q40.html">Sinclair Q40</A>.</LI>
<LI><B>Motorola/IBM
<A HREF="http://linuxppc64.org/">PowerPC</A> family:</B> Most
<A HREF="http://penguinppc.org/dev/pmac/">PowerMac</A> (including G3/G4/G5) /
<A HREF="http://penguinppc.org/dev/chrp/">CHRP</A> /
<A HREF="http://penguinppc.org/dev/prep/">PReP</A> /
<A HREF="http://penguinppc.org/dev/pop/">POP</A>,
<A HREF="http://linux-apus.sourceforge.net/">Amiga PowerUP System</A>,
and IBM
<A HREF="http://linuxppc64.org/">PPC64</A> (AS/400, RS/6000, iSeries,
pSeries, PowerMac G5).</LI>
<LI><B>
<A HREF="http://www.linux-mips.org/">MIPS</A>:</B>
most SGI, Cobalt Qube,
<A HREF="http://decstation.unix-ag.org/">DECStation</A>,
Sony
<A HREF="http://playstation2-linux.com/">PlayStation2</A>, and many others</LI>
<LI><B>DEC
<A HREF="http://www.alphalinux.org/">Alpha</A></B></LI>
<LI><B>HP
<A HREF="http://www.parisc-linux.org/">PA-RISC</A></B></LI>
<LI><B>SPARC International
<A HREF="http://www.ultralinux.org/">SPARC32 / SPARC64</A></B></LI>
<LI><B>Digital
<A HREF="http://linux-vax.sourceforge.net/">VAX</A> minicomputers and MicroVAXen</B></LI>
<LI><B>Mainframes:</B>
<A HREF="http://www10.software.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/linux390/index.shtml">IBM S/390 models G5 and G6 / zSeries models z800, z890, z900, and z990</A> and
<A HREF="http://cap.anu.edu.au/cap/projects/linux/">Fujitsu AP1000+ (SuperSPARC cluster)</A></LI>
</UL>
</P>
<P>Note that some items listed were probably one-time forks, little or not
at all maintained since creation. On some of the rarer architectures,
<A HREF="http://www.netbsd.org/">NetBSD</A> may be more practical.
(Soon, the
<A HREF="http://www.debian.org/ports/netbsd/">Debian GNU/NetBSD</A> port should be solid enough to
serve as a compromise option, furnishing GNU/Linux userspace code on the
highly portable NetBSD kernel.)</P>
<P>If seriously interested in the subject of Linux ports, please see also
<A HREF="http://www.itp.uni-hannover.de/ports/linux_ports.html">Xose Vazquez Perez's Linux ports page</A> and
<A HREF="http://web.archive.org/web/20050308130348/http://ngc891.blogdns.net/kernel/docs/arch.txt">Jerome Pinot's Linux architectures list</A> (static mirrors, as both pages vanished in 2005), if only because
hardware support is more complex than just generic CPU functionality,
encompassing support for myriad bus variations and other subtle hardware
issues (especially for
<A HREF="http://www.linuxdevices.com/">Linux PDA / embedded / microcontroller / router ports</A>).
The above list aims mostly to generally illustrate the breadth of
Linux's reach.</P>
<H2><A NAME="ss1.2">1.2</A> <A HREF="User-Group-HOWTO.html#toc1.2">Other sources of information</A>
</H2>
<P>If you want to learn more, the
<A HREF="http://www.tldp.org/">Linux Documentation Project</A> is a good place to start.</P>
<P>For general information about computer user groups, please see the
<A HREF="http://www.apcug.org/">Association of PC Users Groups</A>.</P>
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