With Linux doing away with 32-bit x86 support soon, any news on PPC?
Is it time to look at NetBSD for elder Macs?
In any case, PPC Linux 32-bit is unscathed for now. The Debian community does amazing work and there is another alternative:
From their site, It supports:
- powerpc64le (>=POWER8)
- powerpc (>=604)
- powerpc64 (>=POWER4+/G5 & PS3)
- espresso (WiiU SMP)
This also then acts as the base for Wii Linux….
Small project dedicated to getting modern Linux running on the Nintendo Wii and GameCube
wii-linux.org
Based on this article, here are my thoughts:
https://lwn.net/Articles/1035727/
G5s will have no issues until IBM gives up on bi-endian systems, only then will Big Endian support possibly be removed from the Linux kernel. 32 bit is in more danger, but the article outlines that there are no plans to remove it either. Essentially, the Linux kernel will probably be fine for PowerPC Mac's past 2038 (when MacOS may start freaking out if there isn't a fix).
The issue isn't that 32 bit x86 is getting dropped from the kernel (at least anytime soon), it is that Linux distros are dropping it. We currently have very few distros (Debian sid and derivatives like Linux Mint, ArchPower, Adelie, and Gentoo) supporting 32 bit ppc as it is, and here is where I think they are going:
Gentoo will likely drop us (32 bit ppc) first:
https://ostechnix.com/gentoo-drops-...precates-sparc-s390-profiles/#google_vignette
The Debian ports group is community based and appears healthy. Likely to survive past 2038 to some extent, as the Debian team is pretty friendly to community supported ports. The issue is that things break and can take a while to get fixed. One I heard about on this forum was OpenGL support in KDE. These types of problems will get worse over time, possibly to the point where no GUI will be useable.
ArchPower has a small group of maintainers (maybe just one?) so I would ask the maintainer about its future. Given the prioritization of the Wii, I speculate that 32 bit support is a given while the project is active.
Adelie Linux prioritizes PowerPC, but that project is still in beta and I don't know if it will ever exit beta. I don't see them dropping PPC support as that is where a lot of their publicity comes from. They are even considering support for 68k, so it is clear they are committed to retro computing:
https://blog.adelielinux.org/2024/12/24/2024-state-of-the-adelie-linux-distribution/ That being said, they lag behind other Linux distros mentioned, and even Macos PowerPC in some areas (like GCC support).
In short, I am unconvinced BSD is more future proof than Linux for 32 bit PPC. I believe FreeBSD is dropping 32 bit PPC. You are right that NetBSD is probably the best choice in the long run among BSDs, but the only one of the four Linux distros I looked at that it will likely outlast is Gentoo.
If you have a (New World) G3, your best options for future proofing are: Adelie, Debian Sid(/Linux Mint PPC), ArchPower, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Gentoo, Tiger, MacOS 9. Check back in twelve years and see how wrong I was.
sourceforge.net
