Power Architecture Platform Reference
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
top
The PAPR specification provides the foundation for development of standard server computers. Various operating systems like Linux and IBM AIX rely on the PAPR interface to run on Power-based hardware. PAPR is Power.org's move toward what IBM did originally with PReP, in that it defines a common hardware definition and software/firmware platform under a set of requirements. In practice, the PAPR is an extension to the Open Firmware specification.
Since 2013, extensions have been done by the OpenPOWER Foundation, which released a slightly reduced public version of the PAPR standard for running Linux on Power hardware (called LoPAPR) [1]. In 2020, LoPAPR was renamed to Linux on Power Architecture Reference (LoPAR) [2] with the release of a new version.
Contents
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Contributing
In July 2020, the document sources of LoPAR [3] were released on terms of Apache License 2.0 in OpenPOWER Foundation GitHub account, and are accepting pull requests from the community.
Compliant boards
• IBM JS20/21 — PowerPC 970FX/MP based server blades.
• The IBM System p product line, called IBM Power Systems nowadays.
Embedded power architecture platform requirements
Wind River led the Power.org sub-committee working on an embedded specification known as ePAPR,[4] that was ratified in July 2008. In October 2011, an updated specification was released, the ePAPR v1.1 to clarify and add a new chapter on virtualization. Apart from basic concepts like using a device tree, the ePAPR specification has nothing in common with the variant for servers—for example it defines a completely different set of hypercalls.
External links
• Sources for LoPAR on OpenPower Foundation Github
• OpenPower Foundation Linux on Power Architecture Reference (LoPAR) v2.9+ (Jun 2020)
• OpenPower Foundation Linux on Power Architecture Platform Reference (LoPAPR) v1.1 (Mar 2016)
• Power.org Standard for Embedded Power Architecture Platform Requirements (ePAPR) v.1.1 at the Wayback Machine.
• Power.org