Linux for the Sega MegaDrive
github.com93 points by HardwareLust 17 hours ago
93 points by HardwareLust 17 hours ago
https://hackaday.com/2026/06/29/its-linux-on-a-sega-megadriv...
I have such fond memories of my time back in the day owning a MegaDrive. It wasn't my first or last games console, but it was my formative one. It was a time in my life when I was into video games (Sonic 2 being the only game I ever played to completion). It pleases me to realise there's still a community around the MegaDrive and - as others has said - this is so crazy but wonderful to see! Very cool to see, so pointless it just had to be done. I was wondering how it was squeezed into 64KB of RAM but it uses the 4MB on the Everdrive cart. With that it makes sense, considering Linux can run on an N64 with 4MB of RAM. If this runs on a megadrive (Genesis), would this also boot on a Sega Nomad, the portable version of a genesis? It should. There are some small differences between the Nomad and a normal Gen/MD, but nothing that should impact something like this Absolutely nuts and squirrels. Then again, I did know that the Mega Drive's CPU loadout (68000 and Z80) is the same as the first Unix machine I ever used (a TRS-80 Model 16), so running some form of Unix on it was therefore, theoretically, possible... Original title: It’s Linux, On A Sega Megadrive It's a cool project! but best to use the original title and original source - see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. I've changed the title and URL to match https://github.com/LinuxMD/linuxmd and put the other URL in the toptext so people can look at it too. Really odd decision for it to be changed away from this original title. And if I'm being pedantic (and I am) it's Sega Mega Drive. Repo, which says Sega MegaDrive, is at: https://github.com/LinuxMD/linuxmd (Disclaimer: I'm partial to "Mega Drive" myself.) Wikipedia has this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mega_Drive_vs_Genesis.gif blue = Mega Drive, red = Genesis Linked here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Vid... (didn't find the sales numbers, for those wondering. Sorry!) And it really is on a MegaDrive as I only tested this stuff on a Japanese MegaDrive.
sp8 - 13 minutes ago
HerbManic - 2 hours ago
walrus01 - an hour ago
mikepavone - an hour ago
bitwize - 3 hours ago
HardwareLust - 17 hours ago
dang - 4 hours ago
msephton - 16 hours ago
dormento - 13 hours ago
nommuenjoyer - 11 hours ago