Ppc64le

This page is used to describe the ppc64le port.

Testing (for developers)

The hosting sponsor for the ppc64le port operate a miniCloud service which will provide Alpine ppc64le images for testing.

View their website at http://openpower.ic.unicamp.br/minicloud/ for more info.

Hardware

You can buy POWER8 hardware from IBM or other vendors, for example the IBM S812LC server is reasonably price competitive to similar x86 servers and fully supported by the ppc64le port.

These are the IBM machines model that would support Alpine Linux:

• IBM Power System S821LC [1]
• IBM Power System S822LC for Big Data [2]
• IBM Power System S822LC for Commercial Computing [3]
• IBM Power System S822LC for High Performance Computing [IBM Power System S822LC for High Performance Computing]
• IBM Power System S812L and S822L [4]
• IBM Power System S824L [5]
• IBM Power System S812 [6]
• IBM Power System S822 [7]
• IBM Power System S814 [8]
• IBM Power System S824 [9]
• IBM Power Enterprise Systems for the cloud [10]
• IBM Power System E850C [11]
• IBM Power System E850 [12]
• IBM Power System E870 [13]
• IBM Power System E880 [14]

Tyan also has machines:

• Tyan TN76-BP016
• Tyan GT75-BP012
• Tyan TN71-BP012

Open Power machines:

• Rackspace Barreleye [15]
• Google Zaius [16]

Installation

The Alpine 3.6.1 ppc64le ISO is available at: http://rsync.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.6/releases/ppc64le/alpine-vanilla-3.6.1-ppc64le.iso
The user login is "root" with no password.

• Booting Alpine from CDROM using qemu

To start qemu using the Alpine ISO as cdrom, you can use a command similar to:
$ sudo qemu-system-ppc64 -device spapr-vlan,netdev=net0,mac=4C:45:42:45:79:F7 -netdev bridge,br=br0,id=net0 -enable-kvm -m 8G -smp 16,sockets=16,cores=1,threads=1 -nodefaults -nographic -serial stdio -cdrom alpine-vanilla-3.6.1.ppc64le.iso

• Installing Alpine to hard-disk using qemu

This feature will be available in Alpine 3.6.2

Create a disk to install Alpine on it
$ qemu-img create alpine_disk.img 16G

Start qemu attaching the created disk and using Alpine ISO as cdrom. An example of a qemu command
$ sudo qemu-system-ppc64 -hda alpine_disk.img -device spapr-vlan,netdev=net0,mac=4C:45:42:45:79:F7 -netdev bridge,br=br0,id=net0 -enable-kvm -m 8G -smp 16,sockets=16,cores=1,threads=1 -nodefaults -nographic -serial stdio -cdrom alpine-vanilla-3.6.1-ppc64le.iso

Run the setup-alpine script
$ setup-alpine

Run "setup-alpine" command and select the disk (in this example 'sda') when the following configuration appears:
Available disks are:
sda (17.2 GB QEMU QEMU HARDDISK)
Which disk(s) would you like to use? (or '?' for help or 'none') [none] : sda

When asked about how you would like to use the disk select 'sys' and select 'yes' when asked about erasing the disk.
The installation will format the disk properly and after it finishes type 'reboot'.

• Booting Alpine from CDROM using qemu and saving modifications between reboots

When using Alpine in this mode, you need to use Alpine Local Backup (lbu) to save your modifications between reboots and that requires some writable medium, usually removable.

Create a disk to save Alpine modifications
$ qemu-img create alpine_disk.img 8G

Start qemu attaching the created disk and using Alpine ISO as cdrom. An example of a qemu command
$ sudo qemu-system-ppc64 -hda alpine_disk.img -device spapr-vlan,netdev=net0,mac=4C:45:42:45:79:F7 -netdev bridge,br=br0,id=net0 -enable-kvm -m 8G -smp 16,sockets=16,cores=1,threads=1 -nodefaults -nographic -serial stdio -cdrom alpine-vanilla-3.6.1-ppc64le.iso

Format the attached disk and add it to /etc/fstab file:
$ apk add e2fsprogs
$ mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda
$ echo "/dev/sda /media/sda ext4 noauto,rw 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
$ mkdir /media/sda
$ mkdir /media/sda/cache

Set lbu to write in the attached disk, setting LBU_MEDIA=sda in /etc/lbu/lbu.conf file

Run "setup-alpine" command and select the following configurations when asked:
- Enter where to store configs ('floppy', 'sda', 'usb' or 'none') [none]: sda
- Enter apk cache directory (or '?' or 'none') [/media/sda/cache]: /media/sda/cache

Last step is to commit the changes
$ lbu commit

After doing this configurations, you can reboot your alpine and modifications will be saved. The next time a change happens, you just need to run "lbu commit" command, as the configurations are already done.
It is import to know that by default lbu only cares about modifications in /etc and its subfolders, with the exception of /etc/init.d!. For more information about how to use lbu and include new folder to backup: https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Alpine_local_backup

Reference

* ABI : https://openpowerfoundation.org/?resource_lib=64-bit-elf-v2-abi-specification-power-architecture