Edit: Some links no longer work.
Originally posted August 16, 2016 on AIXchange
I know more of you are evaluating and using Linux on Power, so I want to highlight some good resources. (Note: A ton of links follow, and I’ve noticed that some don’t seem to work properly with Internet Explorer, so try another browser if you encounter issues.)
This list of Linux on Power “general resources” from IBM developerWorks shows you how to, among other things, install Linux, get Linux evaluation copies for RedHat and SUSE, and find support options. Don’t forget you can run community supported distributions like Debian, Fedora, OpenSuse, CentOS and Ubuntu on Power as well.
IBM developerWorks also has several other good resources. This one is called the Open Source POWER Availability tool:
“The Open Source POWER Availability Tool (OSPAT) is a search engine that was designed to help you find open source packages that are available on the IBM POWER architecture. The results provide the package name and version and the Linux distribution that supports the package.”
At the Linux on Power Community wiki, there are many links to more information. You can meet the experts and check out this Linux on Power FAQ (though it’s dated, much of the information remains relevant, like this list of supported Linux distributions).
Finally, you can see which software packages have been ported to Linux on Power and determine if there are Docker containers for them:
“There are hundreds of open source packages for ppc64le available on IBM Power Systems and more are being added all the time. These pages include lists of the available packages. To help you find what you’re looking for, we’ve organized the lists by application type and for each type, we’ve listed the ported apps, the Linux distribution(s) they’re available on and where they’re maintained. And if you prefer, you can download a spreadsheet that contains the full list for each category.
Linux distributions officially supported on the IBM Power LE platform (ppc64le) are Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES). Further, there are community editions like Debian, Fedora and OpenSuse as well as CentOS which are ported and can be deployed.”
At the time of this writing the last update was July 2016, so it seems pretty current. My only complaint is that I did not see a way to download a single file with a list of all the available packages; this would save users from having to jump from page to page or spreadsheet to spreadsheet. As is though, you at least get an idea of whether or not the packages you’re interested in have been ported to the distribution you hope to run them on. Just from browsing the list you can see the sizable number of Linux on Power packages. Rest assured, more are on the way.
Please let me know if a list like this is helpful to you. For that matter, let me know if you find posts that aggregate related things on the web of value.