Project Reality Forums

Greetings, I'm here with non-PR question:

If anyone of you who has PlayStation 3 at home tried to install Linux on it?
What distributive you've used?
How's that working?

I have. You need to get a distro of Linux that runs on PPC. In all honesty, it runs pretty slow even on the so-called light distributions. I got rid of my Linux install on my PS3 because it seemed rather pointless.

Lot's of people installed YellowDog. I used Fedora and it's derivatives. I'm never tried Debian or *buntu and their derivatives but I don't see a reason why they wouldn't work so long as they are the PPC variants.

If you are unaware, PPC is the processor so distros that have i386 or i686 or AMD-64 and other such variants of x86 processors--which is your typical AMD and Intel processors--will not work on the PS3.

I'm aiming at Fedora too.
Big question is - could I control running PS3 retail games via software created for Linux?

I just don't know exact way Linux works on PS3 - is it works with XMB in the same way as if I install two different OS on different partitions on PC? Or maybe I could start Linux and then launch games while Linux will be still running?

It works kind of like a dual boot system. You're in one OS or the other.

Have you ever used Linux before? Contrary to what many advocates say, there is nothing mystical about the Linux OS that will enable you to do something you couldn't already do in another OS. It's just another OS with different tools (and in some areas of software it is lacking but I doubt you're going to be using your PS3 as a productive computing tool so you'll have everything you need). I say this because I know many people who put Linux on their PC and thought they could do a bunch of amazing stuff but it turns out that it's just the same old **** you've been doing on your other PCs.

I did install Fedora on my friend's PS3. First the installation will split your HD into partitions and wipe out all you data stored on the HD. I didn't try to look around on the HD so I can't say if you could manipulate with PS3 files or not. You won't be able to run PS3 OS while in linux. Linux runs only with very limited resources (intentionally locked by Sony), I think it's about equal to 400 Mhz PC. My version of Fedora (5 maybe?) had severe problems with TV resolution and couldn't use the Blu-ray drive. Yellowdog should not have these issues. PS3 doesn't have much support from Linux community and you are likely not going to be able to use the latest versions of programs like media players (that's the only reason my friend wanted to have Linux on his PS3) and even if you had the latest media players, the Linux doesn't have enough horsepower to play h264 or divx in high resolution (where are the 2.1 TFlops?). The installation of additional programs was a nightmare for someone like me who didn't play with linux before and the results were not worth it. If you are after anything more than just writing documents, even the cheapest and worst notebook available today will do it better.

I like Linux but Sony doesn't. I wish the support for this OS was much better.

Claymore wrote:Linux runs only with very limited resources (intentionally locked by Sony), I think it's about equal to 400 Mhz PC. My version of Fedora (5 maybe?) had severe problems with TV resolution and couldn't use the Blu-ray drive.

I like Linux but Sony doesn't. I wish the support for this OS was much better.

Not that I wan't to be a nit-picker but their are some aspects of your sentiments that are false.

1 - Sony doesn't lock the CPU. You're installing PPC Linux which means it can only use the core of the cell processor which is a PPC processor. Currently there are no plans amongst Linux developers to develop a variant of Linux for the Cell and port their applications to the Cell. There isn't enough cell processors out there do warrant such an undertaking.

2 - Linux has craptacular support for all Blu-Ray devices. Linux's developer's fault again.

Solid Knight wrote:It works kind of like a dual boot system. You're in one OS or the other.

Have you ever used Linux before? Contrary to what many advocates say, there is nothing mystical about the Linux OS that will enable you to do something you couldn't already do in another OS.

Claymore wrote:I did install Fedora on my friend's PS3. First the installation will split your HD into partitions and wipe out all you data stored on the HD. I didn't try to look around on the HD so I can't say if you could manipulate with PS3 files or not. You won't be able to run PS3 OS while in linux.

Here's what I want:

1) Connect 5 or more PS3 via Ethernet to admin's PC
2) Launch client-server application that would be able to gather info about time players used each console, server part of application would be on admin's PC, client parts on consoles in Linux

That's why I need to know whether I could play PS3 games under console Linux or not, if not then whole server-client is pointless.

It's impossible to run both both OS at once, PS3 games won't run under Linux.

Solid Knight: Thanks for correcting me.

Thanks, mate.
Then maybe you have a clue how to gather such information through Ethernet from consoles?)

You could monitor it via the amount of network traffic coming from the PS3 but that'd be imprecise.

OK, thanks, I'll probably look in that direction