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Current operating systems for PowerPC

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Marco Moock

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Oct 1, 2022, 2:36:37 AM10/1/22
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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

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Oct 1, 2022, 4:18:47 AM10/1/22
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Marco Moock <mo...@posteo.de> writes:
>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
an...@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

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Oct 1, 2022, 4:35:07 AM10/1/22
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an...@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) writes:
>Marco Moock <mo...@posteo.de> writes:
>>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:

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.

Marco Moock

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Oct 1, 2022, 5:15:20 AM10/1/22
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Am 01.10.2022 um 08:01:48 Uhr schrieb 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.

> 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").

EoL

> 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>

It seems that only a few packages are available for it, others are not:
https://packages.debian.org/sid/vim

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