Linux/PC-98 v0.4.0

Linux/PC-98 v0.4.0

This release provides five ready-to-write CF/HDD images for different PC-98 CPU and BIOS geometry combinations. All images use Linux 7.1 and the PC-98 IPL/FAT16 loader.

Every image also contains LINUX98.EXE in its FAT16 boot partition. From plain real-mode DOS it can load the adjacent uncompressed VMLINUX without using the disk IPL. See loader/dos/README.md for usage and current memory-manager limitations.

Images

• linux-7.1-pc98-i386-busybox-h4.img.xz
  • Linux 7.1/i386 and i386-compatible BusyBox
  • PC-98 partition table encoded for 4 heads and 17 sectors
  • Intended for machines originally supplied with no HDD or a 20 MB-class HDD, including the PC-9801NS/20
  • Minimum RAM: 5 MiB
• linux-7.1-pc98-i386-busybox-h8.img.xz
  • Linux 7.1/i386 and i386-compatible BusyBox
  • 8-head, 17-sector PC-98 partition table for ordinary 386-class systems with 80 MB or larger HDD configurations
  • Minimum RAM: 5 MiB
• linux-7.1-pc98-i486-busybox-h8.img.xz
  • Linux 7.1/i486 and i486 BusyBox
  • Intended for ordinary i486 systems with less than 64 MiB RAM
  • Minimum RAM: 5 MiB
• debian13-pc98-i486-live-cfcard-h8.img.xz
  • Linux 7.1/i486 and the Debian 13/i486 port
  • Requires an i486DX or newer CPU and 64 MiB RAM
• debian13-pc98-i686-live-cfcard-h8.img.xz
  • Linux 7.1/i686 and Debian 13 using the official i686 userland
  • Requires a Pentium II-class or newer CPU and 64 MiB RAM

Validation

The H=8 images were boot-tested with qemu-pc98. Both BusyBox images reached the interactive console, and both Debian images mounted the ext4 root filesystem and entered userspace initialization. The H=4 image was structurally verified to encode all PC-98 partition entries as H=4/S=17; it requires validation on the intended early real hardware because the current qemu-pc98 compatibility BIOS reports H=8.

Decompress an archive before writing it to a CF card or HDD. The write operation overwrites the destination media, so verify the target device carefully.