Updates to Alpine Linux and RHEL, and now Devuan

Some distro updates of note for ppc64le. First, Alpine Linux is now updated to 3.12.0, primarily a maintenance update migrating to Linux 5.4 with refreshes for gcc, LLVM, Node.js and others. ppc64le builds are available in standard, netboot and miniroot flavours, though only x86_64 and x86 are supported for the extended build, and curiously there is still no virtual build either (though I'm sure the standard flavour would serve for that purpose). There is no big-endian ppc64 flavour.

Red Hat also has updated Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 7 to 7.8, approximately based on what was originally Fedora 19. RHEL 7 is notable in that it still supports big-endian ppc64 (on POWER7 and up, sorry G5 folks) as well as ppc64le, including POWER9 support since RHEL 7.4. It's also notable in that it'll cost ya. If you'd prefer not to pay for your OS but you still really want a big-endian Red Hat, then you may be better served by CentOS 7 instead. Maintenance support for RHEL 7 will last until June 30, 2024, with extra extended $$$upport to follow.

Finally, Devuan is updated to 3.0.0. This update officially introduces "ppc64el" support (using kernel 4.19) and given its derivation from Debian Buster 10.4 should boot on any Raptor family machine. I'd consider this distribution not yet fully at parity for OpenPOWER given that the only installation option for ppc64el is a netbooter. Still, I'd be interested to hear package coverage for Devuan and who out there is currently using it.