Debian does not impose hardware requirements beyond the requirements of the Linux kernel and the GNU tool-sets. Therefore, any architecture or platform to which the Linux kernel, libc, gcc, etc. have been ported, and for which a Debian port exists, can run Debian. Please refer to the Ports pages at http://www.debian.org/ports/s390/ for more details on S/390 architecture systems which have been tested with Debian.
Rather than attempting to describe all the different hardware configurations which are supported for S/390, this section contains general information and pointers to where additional information can be found.
Debian 3.1 supports eleven major architectures and several variations of each architecture known as “flavors”.
| Architecture | Debian Designation | Subarchitecture | Flavor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intel x86-based | i386 | vanilla | |
| speakup | |||
| linux26 | |||
| Motorola 680x0 | m68k | Atari | atari |
| Amiga | amiga | ||
| 68k Macintosh | mac | ||
| VME | bvme6000 | ||
| mvme147 | |||
| mvme16x | |||
| DEC Alpha | alpha | ||
| Sun SPARC | sparc | sun4cdm | |
| sun4u | |||
| ARM and StrongARM | arm | netwinder | |
| riscpc | |||
| shark | |||
| lart | |||
| IBM/Motorola PowerPC | powerpc | CHRP | chrp |
| PowerMac | pmac | ||
| PReP | prep | ||
| APUS | apus | ||
| HP PA-RISC | hppa | PA-RISC 1.1 | 32 |
| PA-RISC 2.0 | 64 | ||
| Intel ia64-based | ia64 | ||
| MIPS (big endian) | mips | SGI Indy/Indigo 2 | r4k-ip22 |
| r5k-ip22 | |||
| Broadcom BCM91250A (SWARM) | sb1-swarm-bn | ||
| MIPS (little endian) | mipsel | Cobalt | cobalt |
| DECstation | r4k-kn04 | ||
| r3k-kn02 | |||
| Broadcom BCM91250A (SWARM) | sb1-swarm-bn | ||
| IBM S/390 | s390 | IPL from VM-reader and DASD | generic |
| IPL from tape | tape |
This document covers installation for the S/390 architecture. If you are looking for information on any of the other Debian-supported architectures take a look at the Debian-Ports pages.
Complete information regarding supported S/390 and zSeries machines can be found in IBM's Redbook Linux for IBM eServer zSeries and S/390: Distributions in chapter 2.1 or at the technical details web page at developerWorks. In short, G5, Multiprise 3000, G6 and all zSeries are fully supported; Multiprise 2000, G3 and G4 machines are supported with IEEE floating point emulation and thus degraded performance.
Multi-processor support — also called “symmetric multi-processing” or SMP — is supported for this architecture. However, the standard Debian 3.1 kernel image does not support SMP. This should not prevent installation, since the standard, non-SMP kernel should boot on SMP systems; the kernel will simply use the first CPU.
In order to take advantage of multiple processors, you'll have to replace the standard Debian kernel. You can find a discussion of how to do this in Section 8.4, “Compiling a New Kernel”. At this time (kernel version 2.4.27) the way you enable SMP is to select “Symmetric multi-processing support” in the “Processor type and features” section of the kernel config.