Linux on a power 6

The discussion yesterday got me interested in getting a lpar running. My
main issues where figuring out how to get the disk correctly setup in
vios and the hmc, finding the right distribution, and getting it to boot
correctly. I managed to get the box to call home twice trying to get the
lpar setup and the disk configured. That's what happens when you only do
this every 3-4 years. It looks like Ubuntu 16.04 is the latest
distribution with a PPC64 (not little endian) version. I can't tell if
they dropped that version, or if it just isn't out yet. I get mixed
signals from the posts I read. The boot issue was because yaboot expects
its config file to be in /etc, but that isn't mounted at boot time.
Copying /etc/yaboot.conf to /boot/etc/yaboot.conf fixed that problem.



medtron@ppcubuntu:~$ lsb_release -a

No LSB modules are available.

Distributor ID: Ubuntu

Description: Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS

Release: 16.04

Codename: xenial

medtron@ppcubuntu:~$ uname -a

Linux ppcubuntu 4.4.0-116-powerpc64-smp #140-Ubuntu SMP Mon Feb 12
22:00:40 UTC 2018 ppc64 ppc64 ppc64 GNU/Linux

medtron@ppcubuntu:~$ cat /proc/cpuinfo

processor : 0

cpu : POWER6 (architected), altivec supported

clock : 4204.000000MHz

revision : 3.2 (pvr 003e 0302)



processor : 1

cpu : POWER6 (architected), altivec supported

clock : 4204.000000MHz

revision : 3.2 (pvr 003e 0302)



timebase : 512000000

platform : pSeries

model : IBM,8204-E8A

machine : CHRP IBM,8204-E8A