PS3 and linux

Wile E · Jul 20, 2007

I just got a shiny new PS3 60GB model. (Only $100 out of my pocket, due to selling my standalone Blu-Ray player, and getting a Best Buy gift card by winning a raffle at work. Wooot!)

Anyway, I want to venture into installing a flavor of Linux.

Has anyone loaded linux onto their PS3? If so, what distros has everyone tried. Has 3d acceleration been figured out yet?

I'm leaning towards Fedora, as that's my distro of choice on the pc, but I'm willing to take other suggestions as well. Was never a huge fan of Ubuntu, but it is still nice, so I'm also considering it. Also heard YDL runs on it nicely.

Anyway, fire off your PS3 Linux experiences, tips, tricks, and just plain ol' stories here.

EDIT: I'm starting off with Fedora. Gonna see how that runs for a while, then probably try some other distros as well. Please still chime in with your stories and suggestions, however.

cjoyce1980 · Jul 20, 2007

I've looked into it and wouldnt bother as the PS3 does it all out of the box anyway.

by installing linux all you would gain is different front end.

Wile E · Jul 20, 2007

PS3 doesn't quite have everything I want, out of the box.

But even if it did, I mostly like to tinker. So a distro of some flavor is goin on there. lol

cjoyce1980 · Jul 20, 2007

ps3 does gaming, internet, media centre........ only out thing i can think that i'm missing is open office!

what else does a user want?

Wile E · Jul 20, 2007

The first thing that comes to mind is, I dl and watch a ton of anime. Much of it is in ogm or mkv with soft subs, and multiple audio tracks. To compound matters, some of those subs are in .ssa or .ass formats, which contain font, placement, and styling information. I want those to playback properly.

As for Internet, I don't really like the built in browser. Don't get me wrong, it's a very nice browser, but I'm a Firefox junkie. lol.

And above all, I like to tinker. Sometimes I like to do things, just because I can. lol

cjoyce1980 · Jul 20, 2007

now i get you.

there is a PS3 version of ubuntu i've seen and one called Fedora if i remember correctly that will do all you pretty much need.

ktr · Jul 20, 2007

congrats on your ps3, hopefully, i will receive mine early next week.

as i said in another thread:

The ps3 uses the power pc architect...similar to macs...so you can use linux...

There is ubuntu, http://psubuntu.com/ and other such as fedora, gentoo, yellow dog...

but the NVidia chip that was made for the PS3 (RSX) is accessible only through the PS3 OS.. and NOT Linux...

The PS3 has something called a hypervisor chip that blocks the access to that RSX chip....

in other words, no open-gl, no hardware acceleration

Jess Stingray · Jul 20, 2007

Install Windows on it!!! It's been done before, through Linux, then another Linux, then loaded to Windows!!! Stably!

ktr · Jul 20, 2007

Ben Clarke said:
Install Windows on it!!! It's been done before, through Linux, then another Linux, then loaded to Windows!!! Stably!

Wouldn't it run like crap? I have ran windows on a powerpc of a mac laptop of some sort and it ran like donkey donk.

Solaris17 · Jul 20, 2007

http://ps3.qj.net/PS3-Linux-The-void-has-been-filled-Full-install-instructions-for-Fedora-Core-5-/pg/49/aid/73144

try that dude

or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZXcuhJkwx4
this

and just a quick note no 3d acc will not work

cdawall · Jul 20, 2007

fedora core 7 works and can load XP thru qemu but its slow

15th Warlock · Jul 20, 2007

I read at Tom's that running WinXP thru Ubuntu using VMWare Server is really fast, the OS boots a lot faster than booting from scratch due to disk caching. Dunno about gaming performance though.

It runs the OS faster than the operating system itself can do on physical hardware. I'm sure this has to do with disk caching and the like. But, the Windows XP Home install I have boots in 7 seconds. It shuts down in two. When I installed Windows XP Home it installed in about 10 minutes. Microsoft Office 2000 installed very fast also. Everything I've installed has gone faster. Everything I've ran has worked flawlessly and just like you'd expect speed-wise. I have had absolutely no complaints with VMWare Server.

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/32967/113/1/6/

Atech · Jul 20, 2007

I'm pretty sure all PS3 hardware support has been in the official kernel since 2.6.20, cell from 2.6.16. Any source based distros should work fine.

I think any ~ppc and ~ppc64 software in Portage will work. Give Gentoo a try

Forum thread and wiki howto.

Wile E · Jul 21, 2007

LOL, had Fedora up and running, but the resolution was wrong. I tried editing Xorg.conf to my resolution (720p), but to no avail. It was stuck in SD resolution.

So I gave up for a while, and finally went to sleep for a few hours. Woke up, go out into the Living room to fire it back up and try to get it up and running properly, when I noticed it wasn't there anymore. I was like, "wtf did I do now?"

Then my better half comes in the room and says, in a super-innocent voice, "Um, I was messin around with the ps3's settings, and I think I accidentally deleted your Linux partition" :roll:

Eh, oh well. Guess it's time to try again. lol

Dippyskoodlez · Jul 21, 2007

Try yellowdog.

Its a distro that is built around "other" CPU types, such as PowerPC, and Cell.

it would probably work excellently, Fedora should work well too.

Wile E · Jul 21, 2007

Dippyskoodlez said:
Try yellowdog.

Its a distro that is built around "other" CPU types, such as PowerPC, and Cell.

it would probably work excellently, Fedora should work well too.

Yeah, I downloaded YDL, but it was corrupt. I don't think I want it tho. The more I read about it in the Linux community, the more I see that it's actually pretty behind, in terms of how recent it's software and kernel are. Plus it uses Enlightenment desktop, I don't really like Enlightenment.

I'm a Fedora junkie, I really like it on my computer, but it doesn't seem to run all that well on the PS3. From what I've been reading, Ubuntu seems to be ahead of everyone in ps3 development, so I think that's next. Well, at least until Fedora rolls out their ps3 specific distro. lol

Dippyskoodlez · Jul 21, 2007

Wile E said:
Yeah, I downloaded YDL, but it was corrupt. I don't think I want it tho. The more I read about it in the Linux community, the more I see that it's actually pretty behind, in terms of how recent it's software and kernel are. Plus it uses Enlightenment desktop, I don't really like Enlightenment.

I'm a Fedora junkie, I really like it on my computer, but it doesn't seem to run all that well on the PS3. From what I've been reading, Ubuntu seems to be ahead of everyone in ps3 development, so I think that's next. Well, at least until Fedora rolls out their ps3 specific distro. lol

I thought Fedora had a PS3 distro already.

I used YDL on a powerbook for a while and loved it.

Enlightenment rocks

But I also really dislike KDE and Gnome.

Wile E · Jul 21, 2007

Dippyskoodlez said:
I thought Fedora had a PS3 distro already.

I used YDL on a powerbook for a while and loved it.

Enlightenment rocks

But I also really dislike KDE and Gnome.

I tried Yellowdog on my iMac G4 once, but it just wasn't for me. Good distro tho.

And Fedora doesn't have a ps3 specific release yet (at least not one that I can find). The newest release supports it, but it's not optimized for it. When I did have it running, it was a little slow. I'm sure trimming some of the boot services would've helped, but it's a little late for that now. lol

Also, Fedora doesn't include the ps3 boatloader on the install disk, you have to download and install it separately. But that's easy, so it's not a huge deal.

cdawall · Jul 21, 2007

god your all insane why cant you just play games on it

still wanna see someone get XP to work on :roll:

Dippyskoodlez · Jul 21, 2007

cdawall said:
god your all insane why cant you just play games on it still wanna see someone get XP to work on

For some of us, poking and prodding hardware brings the same or better entertainment value than games do.

So we do it.

Wile E · Jul 21, 2007

Dippyskoodlez said:
For some of us, poking and prodding hardware brings the same or better entertainment value than games do.

So we do it.

Agreed 100% :toast:

EDIT: Installing Ubuntu. as we speak. It's actually a ps3 specific live distro. Nothing like the "try before you buy" linux approach. lol

cdawall · Jul 21, 2007

Dippyskoodlez said:
For some of us, poking and prodding hardware brings the same or better entertainment value than games do.

So we do it.

i kno if you read a up a few i posted to use fedora 7

but still just ugg im board anyone kno how to oc a PS2?

Wile E · Jul 21, 2007

Yay! Posting from Ubuntu on ps3. So far it's working much better than Fedora was.

cdawall · Jul 21, 2007

cool

now oc you PS3

and have some real fun

Havoc · Jul 21, 2007

Dont suppose someone would like to throw me a spare PS3 over here? Im kinda skint and need one for GT5.. lol

System Name	The ClusterF**k
Processor	980X @ 4Ghz
Motherboard	Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 BIOS F12
Cooling	MCR-320, DDC-1 pump w/Bitspower res top (1/2" fittings), Koolance CPU-360
Memory	3x2GB Mushkin Redlines 1600Mhz 6-8-6-24 1T
Video Card(s)	Evga GTX 580
Storage	Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB, 2xSeagate 320GB RAID0; 2xSeagate 3TB; 2xSamsung 2TB; Samsung 1.5TB
Display(s)	HP LP2475w 24" 1920x1200 IPS
Case	Technofront Bench Station
Audio Device(s)	Auzentech X-Fi Forte into Onkyo SR606 and Polk TSi200's + RM6750
Power Supply	ENERMAX Galaxy EVO EGX1250EWT 1250W
Software	Win7 Ultimate N x64, OSX 10.8.4

System Name	Xbox 360 Super Elite
Processor	3.2GHz PowerPC Tri-Core Xenon
Memory	512MB 700MHz GDDR3 RAM
Video Card(s)	ATI Xenos @ 500 MHz
Storage	250GB
Display(s)	26" Samsung LCD HDTV
Case	Super Elite (COD:MW2 Edition)
Audio Device(s)	5.1
Power Supply	120w
Software	NXE

System Name	The ClusterF**k
Processor	980X @ 4Ghz
Motherboard	Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 BIOS F12
Cooling	MCR-320, DDC-1 pump w/Bitspower res top (1/2" fittings), Koolance CPU-360
Memory	3x2GB Mushkin Redlines 1600Mhz 6-8-6-24 1T
Video Card(s)	Evga GTX 580
Storage	Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB, 2xSeagate 320GB RAID0; 2xSeagate 3TB; 2xSamsung 2TB; Samsung 1.5TB
Display(s)	HP LP2475w 24" 1920x1200 IPS
Case	Technofront Bench Station
Audio Device(s)	Auzentech X-Fi Forte into Onkyo SR606 and Polk TSi200's + RM6750
Power Supply	ENERMAX Galaxy EVO EGX1250EWT 1250W
Software	Win7 Ultimate N x64, OSX 10.8.4

System Name	Xbox 360 Super Elite
Processor	3.2GHz PowerPC Tri-Core Xenon
Memory	512MB 700MHz GDDR3 RAM
Video Card(s)	ATI Xenos @ 500 MHz
Storage	250GB
Display(s)	26" Samsung LCD HDTV
Case	Super Elite (COD:MW2 Edition)
Audio Device(s)	5.1
Power Supply	120w
Software	NXE

System Name	The ClusterF**k
Processor	980X @ 4Ghz
Motherboard	Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 BIOS F12
Cooling	MCR-320, DDC-1 pump w/Bitspower res top (1/2" fittings), Koolance CPU-360
Memory	3x2GB Mushkin Redlines 1600Mhz 6-8-6-24 1T
Video Card(s)	Evga GTX 580
Storage	Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB, 2xSeagate 320GB RAID0; 2xSeagate 3TB; 2xSamsung 2TB; Samsung 1.5TB
Display(s)	HP LP2475w 24" 1920x1200 IPS
Case	Technofront Bench Station
Audio Device(s)	Auzentech X-Fi Forte into Onkyo SR606 and Polk TSi200's + RM6750
Power Supply	ENERMAX Galaxy EVO EGX1250EWT 1250W
Software	Win7 Ultimate N x64, OSX 10.8.4

Processor	Intel Core i7-7700K
Motherboard	ASUS ROG Strix Z270E Gaming
Cooling	Arctic Cooling Freezer i11
Memory	4x 8GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance LPX @ 2133MHz
Video Card(s)	2x NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti FEs
Storage	512GB SSD, 2x2TB HDD
Display(s)	AOC U2879VF, AOC G2260VWQ6
Case	Corsair 750D Airflow Edition
Power Supply	EVGA Supernova 850G
Software	Windows 10 x64 Pro

System Name	Rocinante
Processor	I9 14900KS
Motherboard	EVGA z690 Dark KINGPIN (modded BIOS)
Cooling	EK-AIO Elite 360 D-RGB
Memory	64GB Gskill Trident Z5 DDR5 6000 @6400
Video Card(s)	MSI SUPRIM Liquid X 4090
Storage	1x 500GB 980 Pro \| 1x 1TB 980 Pro \| 1x 8TB Corsair MP400
Display(s)	Odyssey OLED G9 G95SC
Case	Lian Li o11 Evo Dynamic White
Audio Device(s)	Moondrop S8's on Schiit Hel 2e
Power Supply	Bequiet! Power Pro 12 1500w
Mouse	Lamzu Atlantis mini (White)
Keyboard	Monsgeek M3 Lavender, Akko Crystal Blues
VR HMD	Quest 3
Software	Windows 11
Benchmark Scores	I dont have time for that.

System Name	All the cores
Processor	2990WX
Motherboard	Asrock X399M
Cooling	CPU-XSPC RayStorm Neo, 2x240mm+360mm, D5PWM+140mL, GPU-2x360mm, 2xbyski, D4+D5+100mL
Memory	4x16GB G.Skill 3600
Video Card(s)	(2) EVGA SC BLACK 1080Ti's
Storage	2x Samsung SM951 512GB, Samsung PM961 512GB
Display(s)	Dell UP2414Q 3840X2160@60hz
Case	Caselabs Mercury S5+pedestal
Audio Device(s)	Fischer HA-02->Fischer FA-002W High edition/FA-003/Jubilate/FA-011 depending on my mood
Power Supply	Seasonic Prime 1200w
Mouse	Thermaltake Theron, Steam controller
Keyboard	Keychron K8
Software	W10P

Processor	Intel Core i9 13900KF
Motherboard	Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero EVA Edition
Cooling	Asus Ryujin II 360 EVA Edition
Memory	4x16GBs DDR5 6800MHz G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo Series
Video Card(s)	Zotac RTX 4090 AMP Extreme Airo
Storage	2TB Samsung 980 Pro OS - 4TB Nextorage G Series Games - 8TBs WD Black Storage
Display(s)	LG C2 OLED 42" 4K 120Hz HDR G-Sync enabled TV
Case	Asus ROG Helios EVA Edition
Audio Device(s)	Denon AVR-S910W - 7.1 Klipsch Dolby ATMOS Speaker Setup - Audeze Maxwell
Power Supply	EVGA Supernova G2 1300W
Mouse	Asus ROG Keris EVA Edition - Asus ROG Scabbard II EVA Edition
Keyboard	Asus ROG Strix Scope EVA Edition
VR HMD	Samsung Odyssey VR
Software	Windows 11 Pro 64bit

Processor	Kentsfield Q6600 @ 2.8GHz "I eat source code before breakfast"
Motherboard	Asus Striker Extreme 680i (NB:C55XE, SB:MCP55XE)
Cooling	Zalman 9700, 1200mm fan, 5120mm fans
Memory	8GB OCZ PC6400 - 4*2 @ 622MHz (stability problems)
Video Card(s)	Geforce 8800GTS
Storage	2* Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB - no RAID
Display(s)	Mitsubishi Diamond Plus 74SB
Case	Antec Nine Hundred + optional fans
Audio Device(s)	On board (sort of - SupremeFX ADI 1988B)
Power Supply	Corsair HW 620w
Software	Gentoo GNU+Linux amd64 (latest development kernel)

System Name	Dell XPS 15 9560
Processor	I7-7700HQ
Memory	32GB DDR4
Video Card(s)	GTX 1050/1080 Ti
Storage	1TB SSD
Display(s)	2x Dell P2715Q/4k Internal
Case	Razer Core
Audio Device(s)	Creative E5/Objective 2 Amp/Senn HD650
Mouse	Logitech Proteus Core
Keyboard	Logitech G910

System Name	Jemima
Processor	Pentium Core 2 Duo E4300 Allendale
Motherboard	Abit IP35 Pro
Cooling	Custom Built Water Cooling, Utilising a Small Lake
Memory	2GB Dominator DDR2 800Mhz
Video Card(s)	ATI X1950Pro 256MB
Storage	120GB Seagate Barracuda + 320GB Maxtor DiamondMax
Display(s)	Advent 17" CRT + GNR 15" LCD
Case	Coolermaster Elite
Audio Device(s)	Onboard
Power Supply	550W

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