The CPU is Loongson 2F (a little-endian 64-bit MIPS3-compatible CPU). Most programs which I normally use work in gNewSense, except for valgrind and GHC's interactive interpreter. Java is slower than usually (the implementation used in gNewSense has no JIT for MIPS). Parabola uses a faster ABI and doesn't have GHC or Java yet.

The video card does not have any hardware 3D acceleration. gNewSense metad uses the fbdev driver without support for resolution change or 2D acceleration. Parabola uses the siliconmotion driver with unoptimal support for these features.

There are reports of the Wi-Fi card not working, but I haven't observed any problems with it.

The webcam works with only some programs, depending on kernel version.

Suspend to disk and the SD card reader work with Parabola, although reading from the SD card is needed before the partitions are found.