First off, a little history: Transmeta was one of Linus Torvalds first employers. 'Nuff said.
So how well does this code-morphing chip actually handle Linux and would I be able to run a normal i686 distro on it?
I still don't understand how it works too well, but as I understand there is a 16MB software layer that does the platform emulation. From what I hear Windows XP natively supports it, but I haven't confirmed whether it will install off a CD without anything extra.
I'd love to see replies from Transmeta processor owners.
Thanks advance for all input.

*EDIT*
I don't own one yet so don't bash me if I sound out of the loop. I have never encountered one before, but would like to buy one of the ultralight Lifebook P series notebooks.

*Message to moderators: If you feel that this thread would do better in Hardware section, go ahead and move it. I made a mistake.*

Judging by the compatibility reports which owners of this CPU have written, I would say you should be fine using a generic x86 kernel. That said, there's definitely Crusoe-specific kernel configuration options you might wanna look into if you wanna compile yourself an optimized kernel.

So say I use a generic i686 distro, compile a processor specific kernel for the Crusoe, will the binaries from that distro still be compatible?
Thanks.

Well, AFAICT the Crusoe is an i586 type CPU (please correct me if I'm wrong). So if your distro is i686-only then I don't believe it would have been able to work properly in the first place. But, from what I've seen, most distros will have binaries optimized for i686, while retaining compatibility with lower architectures. Like, for example, Slackware optimizes most binaries for i686 while keeping them compatible down to i486. So as long as your distro's binaries are compiled with support for i586 or lower (i486/i386) you should be perfectly fine using a Crusoe-optimized kernel. You'd probably want a distro with binaries optimized for i586 instead of i686, though, if you want the binaries to get the most out of the CPU.

Moved: This thread is more suitable in <HARDWARE> and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

There are different reports on which (i686 or i586) Crusoe actually belongs to. Searching this forum I saw some people running into trouble installing packages in Fedora because it would not find any for the architecture because it was detected as i686 but users say that its really an i686 processor. The variable is manually changed before proceeding with installing packages and everything installs and (reportedly) works just fine.

What interests me more is the workings of the Transmeta platform, because its an architecture in itself but CAN/DOES emulate x86. At what point during boot does it stop being a RISC type processor and loads the software layer that emulates the x86 platform? Where is this emulation stuff stored? Its rather interesting because this emulation layer stuff is supposedly upgradeable.

I'd love to see more discussion on this subject.

At which stage it would belong in GENERAL since it's not a Linux
question at all, despite the fact that Linus works for transmeta.

These things happen before the OS ever gets involved.



Cheers,
Tink