Yellow Dog 5.0 for PS3 Launches Monday

[nickw]

The official Linux distro for the PS3, Yellow Dog Linux (http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/ydl/) is gearing up for a Monday launch. They already have the installation guide (http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/support/installation/ydl5.0_guide.pdf) posted.

When Sony Computer Entertainment designed the PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™), it
was fully intended that you, a PS3 owner could play games, watch movies and
review photos, listen to music, and run a full-featured Linux operating system
that transforms your PS3 into a home computer.

Pay $99 for a Linux distro? I think I will have to BitTorrent this one.

[bapenguin]

I thought the PS3 shipped with Linux pre-installed?

[51|RandoM]

The only reason to pay for a distro is if you're paying for a support contract.

[Odyzen]

1. Monday, November 27: Download Install & Source ISOs via YDL.net Enhanced.
2. Monday, December 11: Purchase DVDs from the Terra Soft Store.
3. The week of December 25: Download Install & Source ISOs via the public mirrors.The public (free) release won't be until around Xmas. This will be interesting.

[disc]

bapenguin: Of course not bapenguin. You can download fedora core and install it today, Yellow Dog will release their linux version free of charge soon as well.

[crashedout]

I for one am curious to see some benchmarks comparing this to other x86 platforms. That may give us a peak at cell power, or lack thereof.

[disc]

The cell doesnt really perform well for ordinary applications that haven't been optimized to use the SPUs. However, IBM has their CELL sdk ready for linux and you can start implementing for it today. Potentially it could be a LOT faster at Photoshop style filters and others but it is all up to the developers.

[DangerousDaze]

Pay $99 for a Linux distro? I think I will have to BitTorrent this one.
I hope EvAv isn't advocating piracy here. If the money is for a support contract then that's ok.

/edit - just read YDL's FAQ. Ignore me. :p

[51|RandoM]

I for one am curious to see some benchmarks comparing this to other x86 platforms. That may give us a peak at cell power, or lack thereof.

it will take more than a simple recompilation to effectively use all of the cell's horsepower. Even then, certain types of applications still will not be suited to architecture.

It is the typical single-threaded vs multi-threaded issue---although they're not called threads on the cell, from what I've read.

[blademonkey]

it will take more than a simple recompilation to effectively use all of the cell's horsepower. Even then, certain types of applications still will not be suited to architecture.

It is the typical single-threaded vs multi-threaded issue---although they're not called threads on the cell, from what I've read.

So then what's the point? you know, other than trying to hack/crack the system. I'm just curious.

[bapenguin]

bapenguin: Of course not bapenguin. You can download fedora core and install it today, Yellow Dog will release their linux version free of charge soon as well.

I thought Sony said it would ship with Linux pre-installed. Think I was just confused.

[Crenor]

Pay $99 for a Linux distro? I think I will have to BitTorrent this one.

Oh yea.

I forsee the PS3 playing many games this way as most are already being downloaded to the PS3 hard drive as it is to play them. Hello no-cd fix :)

[fahrvergnugen]

The real question is whether this will ship with any video acceleration or not. I'd imagine we'll all have to wait around for nvidia to ship a linux binary driver for the ps3 before this will be useful at all for anything graphically intensive.

Once that happens, I bet we'll start seeing the ps3 commonly used as a MythTV front-end.

[Ph00p]

The real question is whether this will ship with any video acceleration or not. I'd imagine we'll all have to wait around for nvidia to ship a linux binary driver for the ps3 before this will be useful at all for anything graphically intensive.

Once that happens, I bet we'll start seeing the ps3 commonly used as a MythTV front-end.


From what I've heard Nvidia might NEVER do that some one simplified it as say they didn't want anyone else to get their "secret sauce" they use in their drivers which you eaisly could on Linux, but thats on a PS3 linux issue thats just a linux issue in general.

[fahrvergnugen]

nnnnnnno.

Nvidia will likely never release an open driver (source+convenient, pre-compiled binary kernel module) for their cards. They've had a linux binary driver for years now, and it's awesome when it works. I don't think anybody is expecting them to release an open driver for the PS3 hardware (although that would be nice), but a binary driver isn't out of the realm of possibility unless Sony asks them not to, or they feel there's no demand for one.

From what I've heard Nvidia might NEVER do that some one simplified it as say they didn't want anyone else to get their "secret sauce" they use in their drivers which you eaisly could on Linux, but thats on a PS3 linux issue thats just a linux issue in general.

The person you're quoting doesn't know what they hell they're talking about. Linux isn't some magic code stealing gnome, bounding into your room at midnight in a che guevarra t-shirt to eat your cookies and decompile your applications. Pick up a damn book, the difference between source code and bytecode is taught in elementary school these days. It's no simpler to reverse engineer nvidia's drivers on linux than it is on Windows, and it never will be.

[Skookum]

the difference between source code and bytecode is taught in elementary school these days.

Must have been sleeping that day.

[funtownarcade]

What should be mentioned is you will need to repartition your ps3 hard drive and delete all your saves, better repartition now if you plan on doing this.

[fahrvergnugen]

Must have been sleeping that day.

I was kind of surprised when my 5th grade neice was learning to write programs and this was part of her curriculum. Cool stuff, IMHO.

Also, if you have to re-partition, you can copy all your saves to a memory card, or a USB thumb drive. My favorite thing about the PS3 so far (beyond easy HDTV smut).

[UglyPimp]

I think it's interesting the PS3 can run other operating systems... but I just don't understand the appeal. Can you download files while running linux/etc.? Seems like there will be tons of malicious code written to take advantage of the PS3 systems. Does the hard drive that stores private data regarding the PS3 users account accessible by the OS?

[Morratut]

I don't understand the appeal either. I would buy a PS3 to play games.

Not muck around with config files and have a horrible linux operating system on it :D

[shnastybiznastic]

I was kind of surprised when my 5th grade neice was learning to write programs and this was part of her curriculum. Cool stuff, IMHO.
Looks like someone went to a west coast school.

I'm mostly interested to see what sort of things can be done with the Cell, sans out of order execution and with bizarre multiprocessing issues. I'm sure that in seven years there will be a reliable open source driver for the video card that provides all the scaling functionality that is needed for media playback.