Ubuntu To Stop Building 32-Bit PowerPC For Future Releases

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Ubuntu To Stop Building 32-Bit PowerPC For Future Releases

With Debian Stretch dropping 32-bit PowerPC as a release architecture, Ubuntu is following a similar maneuver and will not be making 32-bit PPC images of future releases...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ubuntu-No-New-PPC32

[Chewi]

I didn't realise they still had it. I dropped support for Java on ppc32 from Gentoo a while back and only one person approached me to say they were using it.

[mparnaudeau]

As a PowerPC user (and a developer fan of this architecture), I deeply regret Debian and Ubuntu stop releases for PowerPC, and even more knowing that the reason seems to be "there is nobody to manage these ports". On the mailing list message pointed by the article, it is talked about "efforts to identity participants for such community support" led nowhere. I wonder with they did not anticipate and make a public call warning the risk of removing the arch. Like on the IRC session where Debian developers chose to remove PowerPC, they said there was nobody, so the arch had to be dropped. I regret the decision was done considering the situation and not the goal. PowerPC is one of the most used architecture in Debian and Ubuntu ... that are the most used distributions. In projects (software related or not), the initial question must be "what do we want?" and then consider the situation and see what is possible, find some resources, ...
Chewi I know people who use Debian and Ubuntu on PowerPC but nobody with Gentoo, so that's not a surprise you got the feedback from only one guy.

[slalomsk8er]

As a PowerPC user (and a developer fan of this architecture), I deeply regret Debian and Ubuntu stop releases for PowerPC, and even more knowing that the reason seems to be "there is nobody to manage these ports". On the mailing list message pointed by the article, it is talked about "efforts to identity participants for such community support" led nowhere. I wonder with they did not anticipate and make a public call warning the risk of removing the arch. Like on the IRC session where Debian developers chose to remove PowerPC, they said there was nobody, so the arch had to be dropped. I regret the decision was done considering the situation and not the goal. PowerPC is one of the most used architecture in Debian and Ubuntu ... that are the most used distributions. In projects (software related or not), the initial question must be "what do we want?" and then consider the situation and see what is possible, find some resources, ...
Chewi I know people who use Debian and Ubuntu on PowerPC but nobody with Gentoo, so that's not a surprise you got the feedback from only one guy.

This is ppc32 they are dropping, not ppc64 - after PowerPC 970 / PowerPC G5 (2002) use 64 bits. I don't understand, why this is a big deal or did I read it wrong?

[Chewi]

Chewi I know people who use Debian and Ubuntu on PowerPC but nobody with Gentoo, so that's not a surprise you got the feedback from only one guy.

It was a girl actually. She was happy enough just manually downloading the IBM JRE since the Java software she was using wasn't packaged anyway.

You're speaking a little too broadly though. No one is saying PowerPC is dead. It's just 32-bit being let go. Even big endian ppc64 isn't that popular these days but I'm hearing a lot of noise around ppc64le. Someone from IBM announced a new ppc64le Gentoo image for Docker just the other day.

[mparnaudeau]

slalomsk8er For me, the situation is unclear as in the mailing list message, ppc32 and ppc64el are mentioned, but ppc64 is not. I'm afraid they considered ppc32 "all what is not ppc64el". Not a big deal ... many Mac machines use a G4 processor, that is 32-bit: MacMini, PowerBook, ... I hope they will at least support ppc64 (G5, PA6T, QorIQ, ...).
Even with Debian's decision, it was not clear ...

Chewi For one second, I asked to myself before writing "and if the user was a girl" before deciding thinking about statistics ;-)

[dungeon]

This is ppc32 they are dropping, not ppc64 - after PowerPC 970 / PowerPC G5 (2002) use 64 bits. I don't understand, why this is a big deal or did I read it wrong?

You read it wrong 'ppc64' architecture is already not supported, not even with Debian 8,7,6... never it seems - it is only available in ports https://www.ports.debian.org/

So that 'ppc64' is already actually less supported than even this 'powerpc'... powerpc will be likely be in sid for longer, like ppc64 - but sid is not a release.

What is dubbed supported here or not is only about release or next stable release of Debian. Only so called 'ppc64el' architecture will be Debian 9 supported, but that has 4 sure porters in Debian which are also employeed by IBM, etc...

[dungeon]

slalomsk8er For me, the situation is unclear as in the mailing list message, ppc32 and ppc64el are mentioned, but ppc64 is not. I'm afraid they considered ppc32 "all what is not ppc64el". Not a big deal ... many Mac machines use a G4 processor, that is 32-bit: MacMini, PowerBook, ... I hope they will at least support ppc64 (G5, PA6T, QorIQ, ...).
Even with Debian's decision, it was not clear ...

Why it isn't clear? Maybe if we say it this way - ppc64el is one and only officially supported POWER architecture starting with Debian 9.

ppc64 had always been unofficial Debian port, while powerpc was official up until Debian 8.

powerpc just like ppc64 will remain supported, but unofficially.

...

I hope something is cleared up now

[mparnaudeau]

dungeon Thank you very much! It seems to be something obvious to check but I did not and this was why I misunderstood. I apologize ... Knowing that, Debian and Ubuntu statement looks perfectly clear! You gave me the opportunity to look at further in Debian ports.

[Space Heater]

The performance and power consumption of these ancient 32-bit powerpc machines must be dreadful. I don't think Ubuntu would have been a good option for them anyways.