Operating System Compatibility List
Revision as of 21:09, 11 October 2024 by JeremyRand (talk | contribs) (→Linux: Clarify Debian 13 video card models)
Not everything is bug-free, so you might want to the check also Fixes in Progress about the state of their upstreaming. ppc64 and ppc64le refer to big-endian and little-endian, respectively; ppc refers to 32-bit.
Linux
| Distribution | Version | Architecture | Reported by | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adélie | 1.0-beta1 | ppc64 | awilfox | Needs the easy-kernel-power8 package instead of easy-kernel. KDE 5 is stable. |
| Alma | 8.5 | ppc64le | Xilinder | Works |
| 8.8 | ppc64le | maninap | Insured /boot is ext4. AST GUI works for install and fast enough for sysadmin tasks. | |
| 8.9 | ppc64le | maninap | Convert to Alma script worked for CentOS 8 Stream 4/2024. Watch for package downgrades and llvm support, minor tweaks. Maybe last OS for Firmware 1.x | |
| 9.3/4 | ppc64le | maninap | Needs Firmware 2.x or higher. Serial over LAN from BMC maybe helpful with discrete GPU. | |
| Alpine | 3.11.5 | ppc64le | Tle | Needs internet connection for the setup-alpine to fetch grub-ieee1275 and sfdisk. Let's hope the next version would include these two packages in the ISO. I have lodged a request |
| ALT | 10.0 | ppc64le | MPC7500 | Unable to install. The image is not displayed in Petitboot. |
| AOSC OS | RR | ppc64le | MPC7500 | Not tested yet. |
| Arch | RR | ppc64 | JeremyRand | Not tested yet. |
| ppc64le | MPC7500 | Not tested yet. | ||
| Ataraxia | 201101 | ppc64le | MPC7500 | Not tested yet. |
| Bedrock | 0.7.28 | ppc64 | MPC7500 | Not tested yet. |
| ppc64le | JeremyRand | Installed PyTorch on a Debian Bookworm VM, distro-morphed it to Bedrock, installed a Gentoo stratum, installed Gentoo's Electron package, Gentoo's Electron was able to use Debian's PyTorch without issues. | ||
| CentOS | 7.7 | ppc64le | MPC7500 | Works OOTB. I only needed the snippets for the AST GPU |
| 8 | ppc64le | maninap | Works OOTB. In place upgrade from CentOS 7 worked (not officially supported). End Of Life (EOL) on December 31st, 2021. | |
| CentOS Stream | 8 | ppc64le | maninap | Works OOTB. Converted from CentOS 8. Cyclical patch regressions impact AST GPU/Optical drives. End Of Life (EOL) on May 31st, 2024. |
| 9 | ppc64le | maninap | Not tested. May need Firmware 2.x or higher. Serial over LAN from BMC maybe helpful with discrete GPU. | |
| Chimera | 20240707 | ppc64 | JeremyRand | Not tested. |
| 20220912 | ppc64le | MPC7500 | Works. | |
| Circle | 8.6 | ppc64le | MPC7500 | Not tested yet. |
| Debian | 13 (2024-07-01 weekly DVD ISO) | ppc64le | JeremyRand | If using default "VGA" video card in virt-manager, GRUB only shows up on VGA and then Linux hangs on boot, presumably because virtualized GPU drivers are missing in the installer kernel. You can switch the video card to "Virtio", which results in the installer's GRUB only showing up on the serial console; you can then run the installer via serial. Tested in KVM (machine type = pseries). |
| 12 (2022-03-21 weekly DVD ISO) | ppc64le | JeremyRand | Seems to work fine with XFCE inside KVM (machine type = pseries). | |
| 11.1.0 (netinst) | ppc64le | Jas | Installs and works out of box with no changes. Installer is on serial port, VGA is blank
(workaround). Works fine as a KVM host via virt-manager and a Debian 11 guest VM. | |
| 11 (2021-03-29 weekly DVD ISO) | ppc64le | JeremyRand | Seems to work fine with XFCE inside KVM (machine type = pseries). | |
| 11/Sid (2021-02-02 snapshot) | ppc64 | JeremyRand | Seems to work fine with XFCE inside KVM (machine type = pseries). Note that even though this ISO is labeled "10.0.0" in the filename, it is actually Sid, not Buster. | |
| 10 (2018-05-28 weekly DVD ISO) | ppc64le | JeremyRand | Seems to work fine. KDE crashes occasionally, but that might be unrelated to running it on POWER9. Works fine as a KVM host via virt-manager (tested with Debian 10 as the guest). Be warned that the installer will enable the contrib repos (without your knowledge or consent), which is bad from a software freedom standpoint. | |
| 10.0 (ISO is dated 2018-05-18) | ppc64 | JeremyRand | ISO fails to boot in virt-manager (KVM; machine type = pseries). | |
| 10 | ppc64 | awilfox | Only tested in KVM-PV. Using Adélie easy-kernel as kernel, Debian Buster userland. | |
| 9.9.0 | ppc64le | MPC7500 | Works OOTB. I only needed the snippets for the AST GPU | |
| 9.5.0 | ppc64le | JeremyRand | Seems to work fine with KDE inside KVM (machine type = pseries). Default version of Linux works fine. Be warned that the installer will enable the contrib repos (without your knowledge or consent), which is bad from a software freedom standpoint. However, running dpkg-query -W -f='${Section}\t${Package}\n' | grep ^contrib (see this Stack Exchange answer) suggests that no actual packages from the contrib repos are installed by default, so you should be able to disable the contrib repos after installation without ever being exposed to contrib-packaged software.
| |
| 9 | ppc64le | nashimus | Requires 4.16 or newer kernel. Installed Debian testing net install, set apt sources to Debian stable and downgraded, keeping 4.16 kernel. Most VMs failed to boot before updating qemu to 2.12.0. | |
| Devuan | 4.0 | ppc64le | MPC7500 | Works |
| Fedora | 40 | ppc64le | Tle | Works fine. Mutter performance is quite smooth. |
| 39 | ppc64le | Tle | Works just fine. | |
| 38 | ppc64le | DKnoto | Works just fine, see review on forum. | |
| 37 | ppc64le | ClassicHasClass | Review at Talospace. | |
| 37 Beta | ppc64le | jbowen | "Headless" server install works well, as does (GNOME) Workstation (graphics tested with a Sapphire Radeon HD5450). | |
| 36 | ppc64le | ClassicHasClass | Review at Talospace. | |
| 35 | ppc64le | ClassicHasClass | Review at Talospace. | |
| 34 | ppc64le | ClassicHasClass | Review at Talospace. | |
| 33 | ppc64le | Tle | Server and Workstation variant works perfectly! | |
| ClassicHasClass | Review at Talospace. | |||
| 32 | ppc64le | Tle | Server variant works perfectly!
The Workstation Live variant failed to load kernel image at Petitboot prompt, the workaround is to change kernel/initrd paths before booting to be /ppc/ppc64/{vmlinuz,initrd.img} instead of /ppc/ppc | |
| ClassicHasClass | Review at Talospace. | |||
| 31 | ppc64le | MPC7500 | Works. I only needed the snippets for the AST GPU. When installing GNOME (workstation-product-environment) you have to do this modification | |
| 30 | ppc64le | MPC7500 | Works OOTB. I only needed the snippets for the AST GPU | |
| 28 | ppc64le | Sharkcz | only bare metal verified for now, you might want to enable SharkCZ's COPR repo for not-yet-upstreamed updates | |
| ppc64le | nashimus | May need to manually specify inst.stage2, during install. Workaround Bug | ||
| ppc64 | Sharkcz | discontinued in Fedora 29 | ||
| Gentoo | n/a | ppc64le | luke-jr | Once installed, works fine.
GNOME, Plasma and other desktops are supported. Ships working firefox, qtwebengine:5. latest install iso supporting both 4k and 64k pagesize kernels |
| 17.0 | ppc64 | MarcusC | XFCE4 and virt-manager verified | |
| Glasnost | 2022.05-1 | ppc64 | JeremyRand | Not tested yet. |
| 2021.10-01 | ppc64le | MPC7500 | Not tested yet. | |
| Kicksecure (clearnet link) | 17 | ppc64le | JeremyRand | Appears to work fine with XFCE in a VM when the Kicksecure instructions are followed. Haven't tried CLI or host. |
| 16 | ppc64le | JeremyRand | Appears to work fine with XFCE in a VM when the Kicksecure instructions are followed. Haven't tried CLI or host. | |
| openSUSE | Leap 15.1 | ppc64le | MPC7500 | Works OOTB. I only needed the snippets for the AST GPU |
| Tumbleweed 20230629 | ppc64 | JeremyRand | Not tested yet. | |
| Tumbleweed 20190805 | ppc64le | Jonsger | Install via serial console (over ssh) and connect HDMI to dedicated GPU. Use Xorg config from Troubleshooting/GPU#Step_2:_Create_Xorg_Configuration_Snippet. radeonsi is missing, as Mesa-dri is not build for ppc64le. Workaround: install from home:jbrielmaier:ppc64le repo. | |
| Parabola | 15-Apr-2021 | ppc64le | JeremyRand | Not tested yet. |
| PowerEL | 7 | ppc64 | JeremyRand | Not tested yet. |
| ppc64le | MPC7500 | Unable to install. The image is not displayed in Petitboot. | ||
| RHEL | 9 | ppc64le | Tle | Works |
| Riscy Slack (Slackware) | 2020-11-17 | ppc64le | MPC7500 | Works OOTB. I only needed the snippets for the AST GPU |
| Rocky | 9.0 | ppc64le | MPC7500 | Not tested yet. |
| 9.2/3/4 | ppc64le | maninap | Not tested. May need Firmware 2.x or higher. Serial over LAN from BMC maybe helpful with discrete GPU. Convert to Rocky script from CentOS appears to only be x86 right now. | |
| T2 SDE | 21.5 | ppc64le | MPC7500 | Not tested yet. |
| Trisquel | 11 | ppc64le | Simon Josefsson | Review by Simon. |
| Ubuntu Server | 24.04 LTS | ppc64le | JeremyRand | Installs and works out of box with no changes (installed XFCE via apt, no issues). |
| 22.04 LTS | ppc64le | manatails | Installs and works out of box with no changes. | |
| 20.04 LTS | ppc64le | Jas | Installs and works out of box with no changes. | |
| 19.10 (kernel 5.3.x) | ppc64le | FlyingBlackbird | Works OOTB with GNOME (installed via sudo tasksel choosing Ubuntu Desktop) and a single SATA HDD. I only needed to configure Xorg for a FullHD resolution of the AST GPU as described in Troubleshooting/GPU#Display_stuck_at_default_low_resolution_with_AST_HDMI_GPU. Note that NVMe SSDs may crash when a manual or scheduled discard ("trim") is started (due to a kernel bug fixed in 5.4 but there is a work-around, see POWER9 Hardware Compatibility List/PCIe Devices#NVMe_Drives. So far a combination of a NVMe SSD and SATA HDD makes troubles if both drives are used for OS installation targets with booting from HDD causes ATA error messages (I am investigating this, see the up-to-date status of my system configuration).
| |
| 19.04 | ppc64le | MPC7500 | Works OOTB. I only needed the snippets for the AST GPU | |
| 18.10 | ppc64le | q66 | Installs and works out of box with no changes, Xfce4. | |
| Void Linux for Power Architecture | n/a | ppc64le | q66 | Staging fork of Void Linux (custom binary repository and infrastructure, merging changes back upstream), fully functional, both endians, glibc or musl, 64-bit or 32-bit (32-bit works on Talos with 64-bit kernel or in a VM).
UPDATE: Void Linux for Power ISA has been discontinued in January 2023 in favor of Chimera Linux. -JeremyRand |
| ppc64 | ||||
| ppc | ||||
| Whonix (clearnet link) | 17 (Morphed from Bookworm) | ppc64le | JeremyRand | Appears to work fine with XFCE (both Gateway and Workstation) when the Whonix instructions are followed. Haven't tried CLI. |
| 16 (Morphed from Bullseye) | ppc64le | JeremyRand | Appears to work fine with XFCE (both Gateway and Workstation) when the Whonix instructions are followed. Haven't tried CLI. | |
| 15 (Morphed from Sid) | ppc64 | JeremyRand | Dependency conflicts prevent distro-morphing from Debian Sid to Whonix. I'm working on getting these fixed. | |
| 15 (Morphed from Buster) | ppc64le | JeremyRand | Appears to work fine with KDE (both Gateway and Workstation) when the Whonix instructions are followed; host OS used for testing was Debian 10. Haven't tried XFCE and CLI. | |
| 14 | ppc64le | JeremyRand | Appears to work fine when the Whonix instructions are followed; host OS used for testing was Debian 10. | |
| amd64 | JeremyRand | Appears to boot without errors when the Whonix/x86 instructions are followed; host OS used for testing was Debian 10. Didn't test anything beyond showing the XFCE GUI. |
BSDs
| Distribution | Version | Architecture | Reported by | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FreeBSD | 13.1-RELEASE | ppc64le | kev009 | The most recent release, 13.0-RELEASE has initial ppc64le support |
| 13.1-RELEASE | ppc64 | kev009 | The most recent release | |
| 12.0-RELEASE | ppc64 | kev009 | Contains initial POWER9 support | |
| OpenBSD | 7.3 | ppc64 | philipp | SMT not supported. Uses serial for output during installation. Otherwise installs and works fine. |
| OpenBSD | 6.8 | ppc64 | DanielPocock | Official support since OpenBSD 6.8 |
Ports in progress
Rapid progress is being made on these ports by members of the community.
- AOSC OS/Retro for ppc64
- GNU Guix System (Isengaara and lle-bout (email: lle-bout at zaclys dot net))
- NixOS (@crystalgamma:matrix.org on Matrix)
- Qubes OS
- Spectrum
Rejected Ports
External Links
- Operating Systems for PowerPC PPC32 / PPC64 / PPC64le
