Compatible Platforms
Historically, Formilux was i386-only and natively built on the authors' laptops running on glibc-2.1.3 at that time. This started to cause lots of griefs when these platforms were upgraded, so a toolchain was built to allow cross-compilation starting with glibc-2.2.5. Since the build tools have almost always been designed for use in a cross-compiled environment, the effort to port to other platforms was not that hard. Quickly an Alpha and a Sparc port appeared, followed by a PA-RISC one.
Earlier versions were distributed on bootable CDs (sometimes a credit card-sized CD). But in the early 2000s, various system vendors started to agree on a standard way to emulate hard disks with USB sticks and it became possible to boot most systems from a USB stick, so CDs were abandonned.
Nowadays, recent versions commonly run on x86 (32- and 64-bit), ARMv5, ARMv7, and MIPS (24Kc). Alpha and Sparc have long been abandonned because the machines have been powered down years ago and there is no demand.
The following machines have been or are still commonly used to run Formilux :
| Machine | Notes |
| [Systems's LIGHT] | Cheap fanless device with 3 LAN, running on VIA C3-533 MHz (i586-class), with storage on CompactFlash. It supported an internal hard drive which was convenient for network traces. |
| [Engines' ALIX] | Cheap and unbreakable system, more powerful than Lex's above (i586-class), more durable, never hot to the touch thanks to its low-power Geode LX800, controllable leds, button, sensors, watchdogs, etc... Probably the best platform to run Formilux for a long time. Even after deploying about one hundred of devices, we have never ever seen one fail in production! |
| [network appliances] | Quite expensive, but solid x86 devices to build powerful network devices, firewalls or load balancers. They complete very well with Formilux which natively makes use of their LCD, keypad, and watchdogs. |
| Any regular x86/x86_64 PC with or without a serial console and a bit of storage | TBD |
| linuxstamp II | TBD |
| guruplug / sheevaplug | TBD |
| Seagate Dockstar | TBD |
| Seagate GoFlexNet | TBD |
| GlobalScale Mirabox | TBD |
| Plat'Home OpenBlocks AX3 | TBD |
| Marvell's XP-GP | TBD |
| Cubietruck | TBD |
| MK805 | TBD |
| GL.Inet 6416A | TBD |
| Jesusrun T034 | TBD |
