Introduction
As most of you know, Linux is just a kernel. And, for a long time, the Linux kernel ran only on the Intel x86 series of machines, from the 386 up (there is work being done to port Linux to 286, and earlier, machines. See the ELKS project for more information).
However, this is no longer true, by any means. The Linux kernel has now been ported to a large, and growing, list of architectures. Following close behind, we have ported the Debian distribution to these architectures. In general, this is a process with a sticky start (as we get libc and the dynamic linker working smoothly), and then a relatively routine, if lengthy job, of attempting to recompile all our packages under the new architectures.
Debian is an operating system (OS), not a kernel (actually, it is more than an OS since it includes thousands of application programs). To prove this, we have our first three fledgling non-Linux based ports, listed at the bottom of this page.