Void Linux, a release distribution we covered before that is known for its XBPS package manager and interesting design decisions, such as using the init Runit system and supporting the Musl C library, has recently been working to improve its support for the POWER CPU architecture.
Daniel Kolesa, who serves as the main maintainer of the Void Linux POWER port, spoke at FOSDEM 2021 earlier this month about his improvements to benefit IBM POWER / OpenPOWER hardware.
Void Linux for POWER has been working on 32-bit little endian support to complement the existing 64-bit POWER little endian support, as well as already supporting 32-bit and 64-bit POWER in big endian mode. Void Linux also loads patches for LibreSSL to offer faster encryption performance on POWER, making names like Google Chromium running on POWER in its file, supporting Electron applications on POWER and also getting good support for the AMD Radeon graphics driver running on POWER.
Void Linux on POWER was initially brought to PPC64LE on Raptor Talos II Lite hardware and in the years since then it has seen a lot of work. There were also improvements in OpenJDK Java, improvements in handling cross-toolchain and more. For those with a POWER system like Raptor Computing Systems’ wonderful FREE hardware9 hardware, the latest Void Linux seems to be a decent candidate if you want a good, continuous-release POWER distribution.
For more details on Void Linux on POWER, see Daniel’s PDF slide show of the virtual FOSDEM conference, as well as the recording of the WebM / VP9 session.