L4Linux

- Running Linux on top of L4

Status information

L⁴Linux

The latest release of L⁴Linux is based on Linux 6.10. It uses L4Re as a basis and has shown to be stable to run most of the Linux applications. L⁴Linux supports the x86-32, x86-64, ARM32 and ARM64(aarch64) architectures, both in uni-processor and SMP configurations. Various stub drivers are provided to connect to other L4 services.

Previously there had also been a project that ran Android on L4Linux.

Older versions of L⁴Linux up to including 2.6.31 are using the obsolete L4Env as a basis.

Older L⁴Linux versions

The latest release of L⁴Linux-2.4 is based on Linux 2.4.30
It runs on V2, X2 and L4Env APIs, and supports Fiasco and L4Ka::Pistachio in various configurations.

Older ports of Linux 2.2.26 and 2.0.21 were also developed.

L⁴Linux-2.0, L⁴Linux-2.2 and L⁴Linux-2.4 are not maintained anymore.

Functionality

L⁴Linux provides full binary compatibility with the original Linux kernel.

Performance

Compared to monolithic Linux, there is a small performance tradeoff because of the µ-kernel architecture. However, the initial L⁴Linux has been somewhat optimized, and on L4/x86 it has a very acceptable slowdown of less than 4 % for any relevant load.

For more information, please check out our papers from the papers section.