FAQ

Why?

The short answer: we couldn't think of a more useless project.

The longer answer: Amiga UNIX is a mostly forgotten corner of Amiga history. It was only around for a couple of years between 1990 and 1992. Unlike AmigaOS it pretty much vanished the moment Commodore stopped working on it. In the 30+ years since, a handful of people have tried installing it and poking at it, but for understandable reasons nobody really built anything new on top of it. Originally the system was expensive and rare and owned by very few. Therefore it was natural that it never picked up the nostalgia that AmigaOS did.

We still think Amiga UNIX is an interesting piece of the story. This project is basically about getting familiar with an old, forgotten system and getting it running on better hardware. The point is to make Amiga UNIX run on newer Amiga machines and keep a bit of its heritage alive while we're at it.

But wouldn't it be better to spend time on Linux or *BSD?

This project is specifically about Amiga UNIX and preserving it as a piece of Amiga and computing history. It isn't meant to be serious, or even particularly sensible, but then neither is using an Amiga in 2026. If you need a computer for actual work, please use a more modern one.

Can I get Amiga UNIX running on hardware X?

Probably. For the CPU, the main question is whether it has working MMU support. Emulating an MMU is tricky and slow, so at the moment a real CPU is likely always the fastest option.

What runs today: Supported hardware. Anything not listed there, another 68060 card for example, is untested: see how to ask for it.

Do I need a Kickstart ROM?

Yes, your own. We ship none.

Is this just AI slop?

Many components of this project lean on AI a lot, and there's no point pretending otherwise. It isn't a requirement, though, and some of the drivers were written the old-fashioned way. Without it, most of what's here simply wouldn't be realistic, or motivating, in the time we have available — which is probably why development on Amiga UNIX died in the first place. And even with the help of AI, most of the projects here have taken months of work and a lot of testing on real hardware. AI does change the way one can work on totally crazy projects such as these.

Where do I report a problem?

In jusii/amigaux: an issue for a bug or an install problem, a discussion for a question or an idea. More under Support.

How can I help?

Come say hi on the #AMIX channel of the Amiga.dev Discord, or in the Amiga Unix section of the EAB forums.