2024.05.05 - Update, fixes, status & new ISOs

Updates include but are not limited to:

• Linux 6.8.9 / 6.6.30
• Rust 1.77.0
• Qemu 9.0.0
• Qt 6.7.0
• Firefox 125.0.3 / 115.10.0
• Blender 4.1.0
• Arcticfox 44.0
• Plasma 6.0.4
• KDE Gear 24.02.2
• Libreoffice 24.2.3
• LxQt 2.0.0
• and many more

Notable changes & fixes:

• llvm & opencl support as well most of Vulkan functionality has been removed from mesa-24.0.6 on powerpc{,64} due to general brokeness
• the powerpc ISO has been split into powerpc and powerpc6432 to reduce ISO size (fits on 650Mbyte CD-R still)

New ISOs

https://archlinuxpower.org/iso/stable/archpower-2024.05.05-powerpc.iso
https://archlinuxpower.org/iso/stable/archpower-2024.05.05-powerpc64.iso
https://archlinuxpower.org/iso/stable/archpower-2024.05.05-powerpc6432.iso
https://archlinuxpower.org/iso/stable/archpower-2024.05.05-powerpc64le.iso

2024.04.28 - Update, fixes, status & a bit of outlook

Updates include but are not limited to:

• Linux 6.8.1 / 6.6.21
• Rust 1.76.0
• Qemu 8.2.1
• Qt 6.6.2
• Firefox 124.0.1
• Thunderbird 115.9.0
• Blender 4.0.2
• Arcticfox 43.1
• Plasma 6.0.0
• KDE Gear 24.02.0
• LLVM/Clang 17.0.6
• and many more

Notable changes & fixes:

• webkit variants are now stable on powerpc and derived browsers work as intended
• the Rocm 6.0.2 stack is now mostly complete (powerpc64* & riscv64)
• linux-sophgo introduced using the awesome milkv-community repo's variant sporting 6.8.0 on the Pioneer
• lxde & lxqt have been added as choice for your DE on all platforms
• the sd-card creator for Starfive's Visionfive V2 is functional
• debuginfod is now supported & debug packages are slowly being added elfutils>=0.190-2.1 are required
• all qt*-webengine support has been deprecated & is to be removed entirely in the near future

Next Milestones

• Petitboot for Riscv64
  Some focus will go towards Riscv64 and porting Petitboot as another option to flaky linuxboot, grub or directly loading kernels from firmware. This is well underway and a discussion will be opened soon. The first target is the Milk-V Pioneer based on SOPHON SG2042. kexec is functional and some manually crafted initrds already load from home built firmware. Along with the obvious ease of use over other solutions so far available on RISC-V, it'll also bring in netboot support along with emergency shell functions etc.

• sd-card creators
  Right now the focus is on RISC-V here and finally get it to the state it can generate bootable SD cards for all supported boards. However, this may eventually replace archiso entirely which has grown old and we could just unify everything under the petitboot banner (perhaps not powerpc but we'll see about that).

• Intel XE & Imagination PowerVR GPU support
  With Linux 6.8 finally being out stable & in its second point release, both are now fully enabled in the kernel itself and in mesa>=24.0.2. Since these chipsets are rather fresh in terms of kernel and mesa code, your mileage may vary though. This will be an ongoing effort as testing is required and patches are still coming all the time.

ISOs

New ISOs are not yet necessary so keep using the prior release.

2024.02.06 - Starfive Visionfive V2 updates

Finalized the Starfive Visionfive V2 sd-creator and refinded it a quite a bit. Of course, it's far from perfect and it is the only board supported with this method for the moment.

Check out the README.txt on how to create an ArchPOWER SD-Card for your Visionfive V2.

Highlights:

• Based off of VF2 SDK 3.8.2
• Linux 6.1.31 (linux-visionfive2)
• RootFS base from 01/28/2024

Download here:
https://archlinuxpower.org/riscv-images/starfive-visionfive-v2/

2024.01.24 - Updates, fixes & new ISOs

Updates include but are not limited to:

• Linux 6.7.1 / 6.1.74
• Rust 1.75.0
• Qemu 8.1.3
• Qt 6.6.1
• KF5 5.113.0
• Plasma 5.27.10
• KDE 23.08.4
• and many more

Last but not least, ISOs have been refreshed:
https://archlinuxpower.org/iso/stable/archpower-2024.01.24-powerpc.iso
https://archlinuxpower.org/iso/stable/archpower-2024.01.24-powerpc64.iso
https://archlinuxpower.org/iso/stable/archpower-2024.01.24-powerpc64le.iso

2023.12.07 - Updates, fixes & new powerpc64 ISO

Updates include but are not limited to:

• Linux 6.6.4 / 6.1.65
• Firefox 120.0.1
• Rust 1.73.0
• Qemu 8.1.2
• Qt 6.6.0
• KF5 5.112.0
• Plasma 5.27.9
• KDE 23.08.2
• OpenJDK 21
• and many more

Major issues fixed:
#65 - Console issue on IBM pSeries bare-metal (powerpc64)

For which the powerpc64 ISO has been refreshed already:
https://archlinuxpower.org/iso/stable/archpower-2023.12.07-powerpc64.iso
https://archlinuxpower.org/iso/stable/archpower-2023.12.07-powerpc64.iso.sig

For this release many thanks go out to @BushyToaster88 for providing remote access to an IBM S8284-22A.

2023.09.19 - Updates, fixes & new ISOs

Updates include but are not limited to:

• Linux 6.5.3 / 6.1.53
• systemd 254 (!powerpc)
• Firefox 117.0.1
• Thunderbird 115.1.1
• Chromium 116.0.5845.187
• Rust 1.71.1
• Qemu 8.0.4
• Plasma 5.27.7
• and many more

Last but not least, ISOs have been refreshed:
https://archlinuxpower.org/iso/stable/archpower-2023.09.18-powerpc.iso
https://archlinuxpower.org/iso/stable/archpower-2023.09.19-powerpc64.iso
https://archlinuxpower.org/iso/stable/archpower-2023.09.18-powerpc64le.iso

2023.08.19 - Updates, big fixes & new ISOs

Updates include but are not limited to:

• Linux 6.4.11 / 6.1.46
• GCC 13.2.1
• Perl 5.38.0
• Python 3.11
• Clang/LLVM 16.0.6
• OpenJDK 20
• Firefox 116.0.2
• Rust 1.71.0
• Plasma 5.27.6
• and many more

Additional notes:

• archpower#60 a particularly nasty bug in kbd has been fixed with version 2.6.1-1.2 for big-endian powerpc and powerpc64
• linux-lts is now on the 6.1 branch

Last but not least, ISOs have been refreshed:
https://archlinuxpower.org/iso/stable/archpower-2023.08.19-powerpc.iso
https://archlinuxpower.org/iso/stable/archpower-2023.08.19-powerpc64.iso
https://archlinuxpower.org/iso/stable/archpower-2023.08.19-powerpc64le.iso

2023.04.27 - Visionfive2 SD creator, powerpc64 expansion and the usual updates

Highlights:

VisionFive 2 SD card creator

Grab it here:
https://archlinuxpower.org/riscv-images/starfive-visionfive-v2/

See README for more details.

powerpc64 expansion & many updates

Many more packages now available for powerpc64 BE flavour. Including but not limited to:

• Linux 6.2.12
• Firefox 111.0.1
• Rust 1.68.2
• Plasma 5.27.2
• Xfce4 4.18.1
• and many more

2023.02.20 - Initial powerpc64 Big-Endian Support

A mix of [base] and [testing] is still required and the provided number of packages is pretty low still. Installer here:

https://archlinuxpower.org/iso/alpha/archpower-2023.02.20-powerpc64.iso

Don't forget to enable [testing] and [testing-any] in pacman.conf on the installer.

ISO is to support 970 and higher, thus Macintosh G5, (probably) PS3 and newer.

2022.12.12 - Base packages and ISO refresh

Release Highlights:

• Linux 6.0.12
• Libreoffice 7.4.1
• Firefox 107.0.1
• Chromium 107
• Rust 1.65.0
• Plasma 5.26.2
• OpenSSL 3.0.7 (and rebuilds)
• Boost 1.80.0 (and rebuilds)
• ICU 72.1 (and rebuilds)
• and many more

Additional notes:

• PowerMAC G5 support has been tested on real hardware and new ISOs will properly boot. Documentation on the Wiki has been updated where applicable.
• powerpc ISOs now include linux-firmware, be aware when using modeset and legacy framebuffers
• riscv64 refresh is in the works for Starfive Visionfive V1 and V2

Last but not least, ISOs have been refreshed:
https://archlinuxpower.org/iso/stable/archpower-2022.11.02-powerpc.iso
https://archlinuxpower.org/iso/stable/archpower-2022.11.02-powerpc64le.iso