diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index 98f7f8a79e2..3fc052aeaa6 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -145,6 +145,11 @@ Build
 - Issue #10679: The "idle", "pydoc" and "2to3" scripts are now installed with
   a version-specific suffix on "make altinstall".
 
+- Issue #10655: Fix the build on PowerPC on Linux with GCC when building with
+  timestamp profiling (--with-tsc): the preprocessor test for the PowerPC
+  support now looks for "__powerpc__" as well as "__ppc__": the latter seems to
+  only be present on OS X; the former is the correct one for Linux with GCC.
+
 Tools/Demos
 -----------
 
diff --git a/Python/ceval.c b/Python/ceval.c
index 684c6c28f34..f6d4b0b84ba 100644
--- a/Python/ceval.c
+++ b/Python/ceval.c
@@ -26,10 +26,11 @@
 
 typedef unsigned long long uint64;
 
-#if defined(__ppc__) /* <- Don't know if this is the correct symbol; this
-                           section should work for GCC on any PowerPC
-                           platform, irrespective of OS.
-                           POWER?  Who knows :-) */
+/* PowerPC suppport.
+   "__ppc__" appears to be the preprocessor definition to detect on OS X, whereas
+   "__powerpc__" appears to be the correct one for Linux with GCC
+*/
+#if defined(__ppc__) || defined (__powerpc__)
 
 #define READ_TIMESTAMP(var) ppc_getcounter(&var)