14 DAY TRIAL // The CentOS project announced the general availability of the latest CentOS Linux 7.5 (build 1804) operating system on the IBM POWER9 (PPC64le) hardware architecture.
Released back in May 2018, CentOS Linux 7.5 is based on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 operating system and supported 32-bit (i386), 64-bit (x86_64), ARM64 (AArch64), PowerPC 64-bit Little Endian (PPC64el), PowerPC 64-bit (PPC64), and ARMhf architectures. However, the initial release only supported IBM POWER8 processors, but it's now available for IBM POWER9 processors too.
"I am pleased to announce the general availability of CentOS Linux 7 (1804) for POWER9 processors (ppc64le - powerpc 64-bit little endian). This release is derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 ALT," said James O'Connor. "Note this release is 99% equivalent to the existing CentOS 7 Linux 7 (1804) for POWER8 processors (ppc64le - powerpc 64-bit little endian)."
Powered by Linux kernel 4.14 LTS
According to the announcement, the key difference between the CentOS Linux 7.5 releases for IBM POWER8 and IBM POWER9 processors is that the one for POWER8 processors uses the Linux 3.10.0 kernel series, while the one for POWER9 processors uses the more recent and long-term supported Linux 4.14.0 kernel series. Other than that, the rest of the system packages are identical.
We remind those wanting to install CentOS Linux 7.5 on their machines that this release features some changes to the cryptographic abilities of various components, a newer version of the abrt package allowing users to report bugs directly to bugs.centos.org, and deprecates the cryptographic algorithms and protocols that are no longer considered secure for enterprise deployments.
If you want to deploy the CentOS Linux 7.5 (build 1804) operating system on computers powered by IBM POWER9 processors, you can download the installation images right now through our software portal. They are available as a big "Everything" ISO image of 7.2GB in size, as well as a NetInstall ISO image that has only 526MB in size. The dedicated CentOS 7.5 (1804) POWER9 repositories are available here, here, and here.