Is it possible to run binaries compiled for Intel platforms running on linux on a PPC system running on linux? I have a POWER4 IBM system and like to use it as a linux box with all desktop apps on it.
Short answer - no
Hmm, and what about binaries for other PPC systems such as Apple?
Also no.
There are 2 very important factors that determine if an application can run on a system:
- The architecture: different architectures (x86, amd64, powerpc, ia64, ...) use different instruction sets that aren't portable to other architectures.
- The operating system: different OS use different libraries and linking methods. So even if the instruction set is the same, the system calls will be different and thus not runnable.
Sorry guys but no just isn't a good answer.
It looks like http://jpc.sourceforge.net just might do the trick 
Java to the rescue
That may or may not work depending on what you're doing. As usual, the more information you give us the better we can help you.
Their are linux distributions out their for PPC. Check DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.
Regarding JPC: why run an emulator using an interpreted language when there are applications like qemu. Besides, that will get you only past the architecture compatibility issue, not the library dependency issue.
Running GNU/Linux applications in a Java emulator, or QEMU, etc. is not the same as running them natively.