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I'm looking for answers regarding the POWER8 server architecture. Which tag(s) should I use? I see that there's a tag for 'ppc64le', and also a tag for 'powerpc'. Which one is best?

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This question has come up from community members so I thought I'd open it and provide some guidance.

The correct tags to use for the POWER8 architecture are: [ppc64el] [POWER8] [server]

Note that the tag [powerpc] is used for the PowerPC architecture, which is a desktop architecture and does not pertain to the architecture that is in current Power server systems available from IBM and OpenPOWER members.

Note also that there are currently some answers tagged [ppc64le]. Though this may seem like a logical acronym/abbreviation, it is out-of-sync with the Ubuntu ppc64el kernel and release naming convention and should be deprecated. Perhaps someone with sufficient reputation points can help with this by searching for [ppc64le] tags and adding the tags above.

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  • So I think we should probably just synonym ppc64le to ppc64el
    – Jorge Castro
    Commented Oct 23, 2016 at 0:38
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    Is there a reason to keep ppc64el separate from power8? We could just have them all go to power8.
    – Jorge Castro
    Commented Oct 23, 2016 at 0:39
  • @JorgeCastro I believe there are ppc64le-based computers that are not just branded POWER8. Also, I don't even think ppc64el even exists (it just refers to the Debian packaging name for ppc64le packages)
    – Kaz Wolfe
    Commented Nov 3, 2016 at 15:04
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If you're referring to the POWER8 (or IBM's PowerPC 64-bit Little Endian) system, the appropriate tag to use is very simply just . As PPC64LE is only (to the best of my knowledge) a server platform, the use of implies , and having both are unnecessary. If you're running Ubuntu Desktop on PPC64LE (why?!), you'd need to include the appropriate problem tags.

The tag is reserved for Mac OS and similar computers using the PowerPC architecture. This is only meant to be used for questions about problems limited to such computers, so it's not valid.

We don't want to make/use a tag, because then we're being too specific. We don't need a tag that refers to just a subset of a relatively fringe technology.

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  • POWER8 is necessary as we are on the verge of POWER9 which will have differences and unique issues/questions. ppc64el is a good catch-all for both, but not specific enough. ppc64el is inconsistent with Ubuntu's naming convention for the kernel and other bits that support this architecture. Jorge's comment below to 'synonym' them makes sense for the case when people are coming from other OS'es where the convention is different.
    – Randall
    Commented Nov 3, 2016 at 14:34

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