Discussion:
Current operating systems for PowerPC
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Marco Moock
2022-10-01 06:36:36 UTC
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Hello,

just for interest - I don't have such a CPU and I don't plan to buy one.
Is there a current Linux distribution that supports the old PowerPC
architecture (not ppc64)?
--
kind regards
Marco
Anton Ertl
2022-10-01 08:01:48 UTC
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Post by Marco Moock
Hello,
just for interest - I don't have such a CPU and I don't plan to buy one.
Is there a current Linux distribution that supports the old PowerPC
architecture (not ppc64)?
You mean 32-bit PowerPC (powerpc), not 64-bit PowerPC (ppc64), and not
little-endian 64-bit PowerPC (ppc64el), right.

It's always goot to look at Debian for such things.
<https://www.debian.org/ports/powerpc/> says:

|The last supported release for 32-bit PowerPC is Debian 8 ("jessie").

Interestingly this page does not mention (big-endian) ppc64 at all,
but there used to be a ppc64 port and there still seems to be ongoing
work on ppc64 <https://wiki.debian.org/PPC64>. Debian apparently also
still performs buildd-testing for ppc for Debian unstable:
<https://buildd.debian.org/status/architecture.php?a=powerpc&suite=sid>

- anton
--
M. Anton Ertl Some things have to be seen to be believed
***@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at Most things have to be believed to be seen
http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html
Anton Ertl
2022-10-01 08:32:22 UTC
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Post by Anton Ertl
Post by Marco Moock
Hello,
just for interest - I don't have such a CPU and I don't plan to buy one.
Is there a current Linux distribution that supports the old PowerPC
architecture (not ppc64)?
You mean 32-bit PowerPC (powerpc), not 64-bit PowerPC (ppc64), and not
little-endian 64-bit PowerPC (ppc64el), right.
It's always goot to look at Debian for such things.
Following from there to <https://www.penguinppc.org/>, I see a link to
a Debian 11 (i.e., current Debian stable) CD image. So even though
it's not supported, it appears to be there.

- anton
--
M. Anton Ertl Some things have to be seen to be believed
***@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at Most things have to be believed to be seen
http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html
Marco Moock
2022-10-01 09:15:19 UTC
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Post by Anton Ertl
You mean 32-bit PowerPC (powerpc), not 64-bit PowerPC (ppc64), and not
little-endian 64-bit PowerPC (ppc64el), right.
Yes, powerpc, used in older IBM systems and Macs.
Post by Anton Ertl
It's always goot to look at Debian for such things.
|The last supported release for 32-bit PowerPC is Debian 8 ("jessie").
EoL
Post by Anton Ertl
Interestingly this page does not mention (big-endian) ppc64 at all,
but there used to be a ppc64 port and there still seems to be ongoing
work on ppc64 <https://wiki.debian.org/PPC64>. Debian apparently also
<https://buildd.debian.org/status/architecture.php?a=powerpc&suite=sid>
It seems that only a few packages are available for it, others are not:
https://packages.debian.org/sid/vim

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