| Unofficial architecture / CPU baseline | Principal port or rebuild (latest stable) | Tracks which RHEL / RHL release | Typical minimum CPU that will boot | Notes |
| SPARC 32/64 (UltraSPARC II/III/IV) | Aurora SPARC Linux 2.0 (FC-3 based) | RHL 6 → Fedora Core 3 era (≈ RHEL 3) | UltraSPARC II (450 MHz) | Started when Red Hat dropped SPARC after RHL 6.2; still uses RPM/Yum tool-chain ArchiveOSauroralinux.org |
| PowerPC 32/64-BE (G3/G4/G5) | Yellow Dog Linux 7 | CentOS 7/RHEL 7 era | 400 MHz G3, 128 MiB RAM | Long-running PPC spin; boxed-set days were based on RHL, later versions rebased to RHEL/CentOS WikipediaWikipedia |
| Alpha (EV5 → EV6/EV67) | Alpha Core 3 (FC-5 base) → Fedora-Alpha SIG | RHL 7.1 lineage (post-Red Hat support) | 533 MHz EV56, 256 MiB | Community kept Alpha alive after RHL 7.1 via Alpha Core, then Fedora secondary arch Fedora ProjectFedora Project |
| ARMv5 / ARM11 (armv5tel) | RedSleeve 7.x | RHEL 6 / CentOS 6 | ARMv5 @ 500 MHz, 256 MiB | Pure rebuild of CentOS/RHEL source for very old 32-bit ARM boards RedSleeve Linux |
| ARMv7-A (armhfp) | CentOS 7 AltArch armv7hl | RHEL 7 | ARM Cortex-A7/A9, 1 GiB | First official CentOS AltArch; Red Hat only offered aarch64 blog.centos.orgblog.centos.org |
| i686 / 32-bit x86 | CentOS 7 AltArch i686 | RHEL 7 | Pentium Pro / Athlon-XP, 1 GiB | Lets you keep 32-bit x86 boxes on a RHEL-7-era code-base blog.centos.org |
| ppc64 (big-endian, POWER7/8) | CentOS 7 AltArch ppc64 | RHEL 7 | POWER7, 2 GiB | Red Hat shifted to little-endian; BE kept alive by AltArch SIG blog.centos.org |
| ppc64le (POWER9) | CentOS 7 / 8 AltArch “power9” | RHEL 7 & 8 | POWER9, 4 GiB | Red Hat began LE support only in RHEL 8; CentOS back-ported to 7 blog.centos.org |
| RISC-V (rv64gc) | Rocky Linux 9 AltArch (preview) / RL 10 work-in-progress | RHEL 9 (and planned 10) | Any 64-bit RISC-V SoC (≥ 1 GiB RAM) | Community port in RESF AltArch SIG; aims for GA alongside Rocky 10 rockylinux.org |
| Loongson MIPS64 (mips64el) | Loongnix 8 (CentOS 8 rebuild) | RHEL 8 | Loongson 3A/3B (≥ 1 GHz) |
Thursday, May 22, 2025
A grab-sheet of community/third-party “Red Hat-compatible” ports that keep older or exotic CPU families alive
A timeline showing every “classic” Red Hat operating-system family release from the very first boxed set in 1995 up to today’s RHEL 10 preview, and the oldest CPU/ISA level you can boot it on.
| Year · Release (GA kernel, min CPU / min RAM) | x86 / x86-64 minimum ISA level | 64-bit ARM | IBM Power (LE unless noted) | IBM Z | Itanium | Key sources |
| 2025 · RHEL 10 (6.12) ≥ 1 GHz x86-64-v3 / ≥ 2 GiB <br>(draft installer notes) | x86-64-v3 | ARM v8-A | POWER9 | z14 | — | Red Hat RHEL 10 adoption guide (CPU ISA) |
| 2022 · RHEL 9 (5.14) 1 GHz / 2 GiB | x86-64-v2 | ARM v8-A | POWER9 | z14 | — | IONOS install guide (1 GHz + 2 GiB) |
| 2019 · RHEL 8 (4.18) 1 GHz / 1.5 GiB per vCPU | x86-64-v1 | ARM v8 | POWER8 | z14 | — | TechBloat (1 GHz); Dell install guide (1.5 GiB/vCPU) |
| 2014 · RHEL 7 (3.10) ≥ 1 GHz (2 threads) / 1 GiB | x86-64-v1 | — (retired) | POWER7+ (BE) → POWER8 (LE) | zEC12 | — | RHEL 7 forum post (2 threads/≈1 GHz)LinuxQuestions; Explinux minima table (1 GiB)Explinux |
| 2010 · RHEL 6 (2.6.32) ≥ 1 GHz / 512 MiB (min) ¹ | i686 / x86-64 | — | POWER6 | z9 EC | — | SLAC / LQ note (512 MiB & 1 GHz)LinuxQuestions |
| 2007 · RHEL 5 (2.6.18) 1 GHz / 512 MiB | i686 / x86-64 | — | POWER5+ | z900 | Itanium 2 | Dell RHEL 5 guide (512 MiB)Dell FTP; Oracle HW doc (1 GHz)Oracle Documentation |
| 2005 · RHEL 4 (2.6.9) 200 MHz Pentium / 256 MiB ² | i686 / x86-64 | — | POWER4+ | zSeries | Itanium 2 | Red Hat tech-limits page (256 MiB)Red Hat Customer Portal |
| 2003 · RHEL 3 (2.4.21) 200 MHz Pentium / 256 MiB | i686 / x86-64 | — | POWER4 | S/390 & zSeries | Itanium 1 / 2 | Tech-limits page (256 MiB)Red Hat Customer Portal |
| 2003 · Red Hat Linux 9 200 MHz Pentium / 64 MiB (text) 128 MiB (GUI) | i586 | — | — | — | — | RHL 9 Release Notes |
| 2002 · Red Hat Linux 8.0 200 MHz Pentium / 64 MiB | i586 | Alpha | SPARC | — | — | RHL 7.x/8.x boxed-set books mirror same specs (example 7.2 Bible) |
| 2000 · RHL 7.x Intel 486+ / 16 MiB | i486 | Alpha EV6 | SPARC 32/64 | — | — | RHL 7.1 Bible (16 MiB RAM)Internet Archive |
| 1999 · RHL 6.x Intel 486+ / 32 MiB | i486 | Alpha | SPARC | — | — | RHL 6.1 install guide template (32 MiB) |
| 1998 · RHL 5.x 386 / 8 MiB | i386 | Alpha | SPARC (5.1+) | — | — | “Complete Red Hat Linux” boxed set (386 + 8 MiB) |
| 1996 · RHL 4.x / 3.0.3 386 / 8 MiB | i386 | Alpha (3.0.3+) | SPARC (4.0+) | — | — | Same boxed-set spec above applies (386 + 8 MiB) |
| 1995 · RHL 1.x / 2.x 386 / 8 MiB | i386 | — | — | — | — | Early CD jackets list 386 CPU & 8 MiB RAM (identical to 5.x set) |
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