I am running Tumbleweed 20191128 on an x86-64 system. When I try to install a
ppc64le virtual machine from the ubuntu-19.10-server-ppc64el.iso file with
qemu-system-ppc64  -cdrom ubuntu-19.10-server-ppc64el.iso -M pseries -cpu
power9 -m size=1024 -hda /var/lib/libvirt/images/ubuntu19.04-ppc64le.qcow2
I get an attempted installation, but a few 'illegal instruction' errors and a
failed install.
If I try installing from ubuntu-18.04.3-server-ppc64el.iso , I get a few
'Segmentation violation' errors and again a failed install.
If I specify '-M pseries-3.1' and no -cpu option, the install succeeds in both
cases. So it looks like there is a regression with qemu's '-M pseries' flag.
qemu help says that '-M pseries' is equivalent to '-M pseries-4.1'.
I have not tried installing ubuntu on a real pseries-4.1 machine, but I presume
this would work.

See bug https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1158111 for the original
problem; i was trying to use virt-manager to do the install, but ran into a
problem and then tried qemu-system-ppc64 .

The ubuntu ppc64le install images are available from
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/19.10/release/ubuntu-19.10-server-ppc64el.iso
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/18.04/release/ubuntu-18.04.3-server-ppc64el.iso