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Where can I find a list of which architectures are available for Ubuntu, and which of those have official support from Canonical?

Braiam
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Kees Cook
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2 Answers2

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The list is available here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SecurityTeam/FAQ#Architectures

Ubuntu's supported architectures change over time, but x86 32-bit ("i386") and x86 64-bit ("amd64") are the most standard architectures, with ARM ("armel") becoming a recent addition.

Kees Cook
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    As a sidenote: the 32bit one, while tagged "i386" is actually compiled for i686 – maco Nov 01 '10 at 19:48
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    Right, the architecture names are a bit misleading. Additionally, "amd64" works fine on EM64T Intel systems too. – Kees Cook Nov 01 '10 at 20:01
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The linux kernel is ported to several dozen architectures, and many of the basic linux tools are also ported to those architectures (libc, gcc, etc.).

Ubuntu support is primarily focused around i386 and its 64 bit extension, for obvious reasons.

However, according to the ubuntu wiki, there are officialy supported ports for 3 architectures. And 3-4 more that are not officially supported by canonical. However, all 7 architectures are installable from the "Alternative Install CD", even if not all of them are maintained by canonical

The installation guide has documents for all 7 of the supported architectures.

crasic
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  • Erk, that's unfortunate, as the ia64 and sparc ports were dropped by the technical board during the maverick cycle due to lack of community interest in maintaining them as per https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/technical-board/2010-August/000441.html . I've filed https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/installation-guide/+bug/669669 to get them removed from the installation guide. – Steve Beattie Nov 01 '10 at 22:11