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PS3 and linux

Wile E

Wile E

Power User
Joined
Oct 1, 2006
Messages
24,318 (3.55/day)
System Specs
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
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.
 
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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.
 
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
 
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?
 
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
 
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.
 
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
Click to expand...
 
Install Windows on it!!! It's been done before, through Linux, then another Linux, then loaded to Windows!!! Stably!
 
Ben Clarke said:
Install Windows on it!!! It's been done before, through Linux, then another Linux, then loaded to Windows!!! Stably!
Click to expand...

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.
 
fedora core 7 works and can load XP thru qemu but its slow
 
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.
Click to expand...

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

I thought Fedora had a PS3 distro already.

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

Enlightenment rocks :D

But I also really dislike KDE and Gnome.
 
Dippyskoodlez said:
I thought Fedora had a PS3 distro already.

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

Enlightenment rocks :D

But I also really dislike KDE and Gnome.
Click to expand...
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.
 
god your all insane why cant you just play games on it :D still wanna see someone get XP to work on :roll:
 
cdawall said:
god your all insane why cant you just play games on it :D still wanna see someone get XP to work on :roll:
Click to expand...

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

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

So we do it. :)
Click to expand...
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
 
Dippyskoodlez said:
For some of us, poking and prodding hardware brings the same or better entertainment value than games do.

So we do it. :)
Click to expand...

i kno if you read a up a few i posted to use fedora 7 :D but still just ugg im board anyone kno how to oc a PS2?
 
Yay! Posting from Ubuntu on ps3. So far it's working much better than Fedora was.
 
cool

now oc you PS3 :D and have some real fun
 
Dont suppose someone would like to throw me a spare PS3 over here? Im kinda skint and need one for GT5.. lol
 
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