Official Linux on PS3 thread

Joebob · 27 Jan 2007 at 22:40

As the title states, I thought it would be good to have one thread to talk about the virtues of running linux on the old PS3.

I know about Yellow Dog, although I havent got around to installing it yet as I'm still a bit new to Linux and it does look rather complex. I heard there's some other versions coming out too and wondered what the word on the street was - so to speak!

I can see more complete rounded versions of PS3 dedicated Linux coming out if this community takes off so hopefully there will be some real good extra functionality to the PS3 which we don't even know about yet.

Just my views.

Apopcalyptic · 27 Jan 2007 at 23:19

So what kernel version does YDL run on then?

Begbie · 28 Jan 2007 at 03:45

LOL, is this not going to cause a serious amount of homebrew on the ps3?

Joebob · 28 Jan 2007 at 07:41

Apopcalyptic said:
So what kernel version does YDL run on then?

I have no idea, that's why I started this thread to try and get more info as it comes along.

Apopcalyptic · 28 Jan 2007 at 09:30

Joebob said:
I have no idea, that's why I started this thread to try and get more info as it comes along.

lol. Fair enough. I should imagine that Cell support is hard coded into the latest unstable releases of the kernel, rather than being a module, therefore getting any distribution to run shouldn't be too difficult.

I might stick Debian on mine when it arrives

"andy" · 28 Jan 2007 at 11:57

begbo said:
LOL, is this not going to cause a serious amount of homebrew on the ps3?

and the problem with that is ?

if they didnt want hombrew to be ran they would have blocked it like with the later psp firmwares

Joebob · 29 Jan 2007 at 17:31

I know there are already region free DVD players out for Linux but does anyone know if any are coming out which will play Blu-Ray?

"andy" · 29 Jan 2007 at 17:37

haha i like your way of thinking

Joebob · 29 Jan 2007 at 17:45

andy8271 said:
haha i like your way of thinking

I was erm... *cough* just curious is all - honest!

masterluke · 29 Jan 2007 at 19:02

I havent had a play myself but i hear that PS3 linux variaions do NOT have direct access to the graphics hardware.. they are also rather slow and only have access to 256mb of memory. This pretty much cripples it and means that you will probably never see a DVD or bluray player that runs at a decent speed.

Vonhelmet · 29 Jan 2007 at 19:15

masterluke said:
I havent had a play myself but i hear that PS3 linux variaions do NOT have direct access to the graphics hardware.. they are also rather slow and only have access to 256mb of memory. This pretty much cripples it and means that you will probably never see a DVD or bluray player that runs at a decent speed.

Aye. That's what I've heard. As far as I know, Linux on the PS3 works with an entire virtualised PS3 system, so you don't access the hardware, you access a virtual system which deals with the hardware. Good luck doing much interesting with that.

Psyk · 29 Jan 2007 at 19:56

I always guessed that's how Sony would play it. Couldn't see them letting consumers have full access to all the hardware. Would make piracy incredibly easy.

But still, at least it shows Sony are willing to compromise. They're giving customers the ability to run homebrew software, just not up to the standard of the commercial stuff. There will still be plenty of emulators and simple games available for it.