Linux distros

Saruman

Hi, can I use any distro of Linux like in x86 PC? Or there are especific distros compiled for this platform?

Thanks!

db

hmm i assume you would be able to use any you want that is compiled for x86 since it has the atom cpu which is comparable to a regular desktop cpu in terms of the x86.

Javier Arteaga

Hi Saruman13,

You should be able to use any x86 Linux distribution with a reasonably recent kernel. For now, however, some board-specific features (like GPIO support for the 40-pin header, or HDMI audio) will only be made available in ubilinux. We will also enable some of these for Ubuntu. As for other kernels/distributions, our patches will be publicly available, so they could be ported to other systems.

Regards

DCleri

Hi Saruman13,

audiosky7 is correct and you can use any x86 distribution you might prefer but bare in mind that to fully support the UP functionality you should use one which has the UP patches already integrated.

At launch the 40 pin I/O, HDMI audio and other minor modifications will be available on ubilinux (based on debian 8 ).
As the Kernel patches will be publicly available soon with the public release of ubilinux, anyone from the community could enable the same functionalities on additional distributions in the coming weeks/months.

db

ok so the gpio support will only work with ubilinux as of right now,
i guess i should wait until it supported on there linux distros
what is ubilinux like, is it just like debian or is it stripped down

Javier Arteaga

It is a pretty standard Debian Jessie-based system, not stripped down. All Jessie packages for the amd64 architecture can be installed, and most should just work. We mostly provide a pre-patched kernel and utilities to make it easy to use the board features right out of the box.