[nickik]

There is actually quite a bit of work going on in Linux without MMU. Check Linux Plummers conference RISC-V track for example.

[Taniwha]

Yeah that's why I said "really needs", there are cut down versions that will run without an MMU, it's not really the mainline Linux though - I've worked with MMUless kernels in the past, it's not a lot of fun (and I started porting V6/V7 for base and bounds swapping machines)