Ubuntu LTS updates

An updated release of the long-term support Ubuntu 18 (Bionic Beaver) is now available for ppc64el. Read the full changelog for 18.04.1.

Ubuntu 18 is the first LTS version to officially support the POWER9 and the Talos II and should "just work." POWER8 and earlier 64-bit Power generations are still supported by Ubuntu 16 (Xenial Xerus). Read the full changelog for 16.04.5. You may be able to use the hardware enablement stack to boot a POWER9 system with Ubuntu 16, but Ubuntu 18 is strongly recommended.

Of the currently supported LTSes, only Ubuntu 14 and 16 still support 32-bit PowerPC; 32-bit systems are unfortunately no longer supported for Ubuntu 17 and up. For those using Ubuntu 14, 14.04.5 (Trusty Tahr) was also released.

All Power ISA official releases of Ubuntu are Server branded and do not install a GUI by default.