Introducing the LPAE Split

To better support the wide variety of 32-bit ARM hardware
in the wild, starting with Linux-libre version 6.6-gnu and
moving forward, the 32-bit ARM (armhf) Linux-libre kernels
will be split into two distinct flavors: one with LPAE
support, and one without.

LPAE stands for Large Physical Address Extension. On
32-bit ARM architectures, enabling LPAE in the kernel is
needed to address more than 4GB of physical RAM and to
support hardware virtualization (KVM). But older ARMv7
processors, such as the Cortex-A8 and Cortex-A9, don't
support this, and an LPAE-enabled kernel will fail to
boot.

Because it's impossible to have a single 32-bit kernel
image that supports both at the same time, the builds are
split into two.

If you're unsure whether your current 32-bit ARM processor
supports LPAE, you can easily check by looking at your CPU
flags. Run this command in your terminal:

grep --color=always -i lpae /proc/cpuinfo

If it returns output, you'll see one or more lines listing
your CPU "Features" that include the word "lpae". This means
your processor supports LPAE. Otherwise, it doesn't.

Which package do you need?

For 32-bit ARM boards that support LPAE, the standard
kernel package names remain unchanged. These are built with
CONFIG_ARM_LPAE=y and are meant for such
processors. If your hardware supports it, or if you need
virtualization or have 4GB+ of RAM, use the the linux-libre
or linux-libre-lts packages.

If your device doesn't support LPAE, or if it's been
hanging during boot with recent kernels, you'll need these
new builds. They're built with CONFIG_ARM_LPAE=n
for ARMv7 processors that don't support LPAE. To use these,
just append -nonlpae to the usual package names:
linux-libre-nonlpae or linux-libre-lts-nonlpae.

The main server has been updated to include the new
• nonlpae packages starting with the 6.6 branch. If you use a
mirror, please allow a day or two for the files to sync
across the network fully.

Copyright © 2026 Jason Self. Unless otherwise noted
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