Anyone else keeping old PowerPC hardware alive with Void Linux?
I've got a couple of aging Power Mac G5s sitting around that I just can't let go of, but finding a modern Linux distro that still supports them has been a nightmare. Most mainstream projects dropped 32-bit and big-endian support years ago. Then I stumbled across an unofficial port of Void Linux specifically for PowerPC and Power ISA hardware, and honestly, it's been a lifesaver. They support both 64-bit and 32-bit hardware, with little and big endian modes, and they aim to be legacy-free using the modern ELFv2 ABI where possible. What really impressed me is their package coverage — somewhere between 88% and 96% of unique packages depending on the target, and they even ship stuff like Qt5 WebEngine that others don't bother with. The documentation is clear about hardware requirements, from 970/G5 on big endian to POWER8+ for little endian, and they've got live images with Xfce if you don't want to start from the command line. If you're tired of distros abandoning older architectures, check out https://voidlinux-ppc.org/ — it's kept my old PowerPC machines humming along with up-to-date packages and a surprisingly active community. Definitely worth a look if you're into tinkering with non-x86 hardware or just want to give new life to some classic gear.
