14 DAY TRIAL // On December 28, 2015, Debian developer John Paul Adrian Glaubitz had the great pleasure of announcing the immediate availability for download of the first network install ISO image for the SPARC64 hardware architecture.
SPARC64 is a microprocessor developed by HAL Computer Systems and manufactured by Fujitsu. It is the first to implement the SPARC V9 instruction set architecture and was HAL's first microprocessor.
Thanks to John Paul Adrian Glaubitz, you can now attempt to install the Debian GNU/Linux 9.0 "Stretch" operating system on hardware powered by the SPARC64 microprocessor. However, please note that the ISO images have not yet been thoroughly tested.
"Here's my first attempt for a SPARC64 netinst image," said John Paul Adrian Glaubitz. "This has not been tested _at all_ and was just freshly generated, so there is absolutely no warranty it will turn your sparc box into a toaster. Looking forward to any feedback!"
You can download the new SPARC64 installation media right now from Debian's servers, where you'll find both business card (BC) and netinst (network installation) CDs based on the Debian GNU/Linux 9.0 "Stretch" operating system, which is currently under development.
Please try to keep in mind that these images are not officially supported by Debian. Use them at your own risk, and remember that they haven't been properly tested at the moment of writing this article, so drop a comment below if you encounter issues.