http://www.osnews.com/story/17340/PS3_Available_Pre-Installed_with_Linux Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:55:36 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread?215669 http://osnews.com/thread?215669 A PS3 with Linux isn't all that exciting when the system only has 256 MB of RAM and CPU equivelent to an 800 MHz P3 (No branch prediction and SPE's arn't used), and no 3D acceleration for that monster GPU inside.

Buying a PS3 on the merit of being a full-fledged computer is an expensive mistake.

$600 for a PIII 800 MHz and 256 MB RAM, 256 MB VRAM for a fantastic frame buffer experience.

You do the math.Edited 2007-02-22 23:34 Thu, 22 Feb 2007 23:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Xaero_Vincent) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215685 http://osnews.com/thread?215685 It's already clear that Sony, and PS3 owners, cannot do math.

Sony forgot to 'carry the one' with the number of consoles available on launch, then cocked up the conversion to European prices by entering the wrong multiplier. Not that the price was already well off course to start with.Edited 2007-02-23 00:00 Thu, 22 Feb 2007 23:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215694 http://osnews.com/thread?215694 The 256MB ram, unavailable SPE and no access to the GPU or the 256MB ram there makes this a deal killer.

Really the xbox360 looks to be a far more attractive linux box than the ps3, for everyday desktop usage. Of course the 360 is about as drm'd as it can be.

Drop the fancy stuff: blu-ray, wireless, bluetooth, shrink the case, leave out the hard drive (but provide an eSATA port). Sell at $250-$300 and I might bite. Fri, 23 Feb 2007 00:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bnolsen) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215698 http://osnews.com/thread?215698 CPU equivelent to an 800 MHz P3 (No branch prediction and SPE's arn't used)

Wrong. All SPE's are fully available under PS3 Linux.
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-linuxps3-1/

Therefore, the rest of your comment is wrong too. As a full-fledged computer PS3 is definitely a bargain: $600 for 3Ghz multicore PPC/256RAM (should be enough for pretty much anything provided the OS is optimized enough) + Blu-ray drive + ability to run nextgen games + silent operation. Fri, 23 Feb 2007 00:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (stare) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215702 http://osnews.com/thread?215702 Really the xbox360 looks to be a far more attractive linux box than the ps3, for everyday desktop usage.

Yeah, xbox360 which currentlly cannot run Linux at all is definitely a far more attractive linux box than the officially Linux-supported PS3. Fri, 23 Feb 2007 00:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (stare) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215713 http://osnews.com/thread?215713 I'm aware of this new low-level API that grants access to the SPE units.

But the fact of the matter is virtually no Linux software uses the API yet; thus the SPE units arnt being used.

There is also question whether or not it can be incorperated without breaking software compatability with non-Cell based systems. Fri, 23 Feb 2007 00:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Xaero_Vincent) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215718 http://osnews.com/thread?215718 I don't think it's a bad buy. The PS3 is a nice piece of hardware wich will be more explored in the future. The fact that they support linux and a serve a lot of multimedia options is a bonus and nice for geeks like me (who like some freedom on hardware I own). And, not at least, gaming (free network play) without Microsoft being involved.
Most of the bashing against PS3 is based on the cost of the ps3. Just buy your p3 800 mhz, wich cant play modern games, windows vista with a €300 pricetag and a graphic card at the same price. €600 for an os and a graphic card ? And how long will it be supported ?
Xbox360 + 4years online = €650 Fri, 23 Feb 2007 01:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (foez) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215737 http://osnews.com/thread?215737 You are really on a roll with get effectively every single thing you have posted wrong.

Two years ago or so work began to add SPU support into the main Linux codebase. Check the kernel mailing lists if you want to see for yourself.

And people have been writing SPU code since the day the first person got their hands on a PS3 and installed Linux on the machine.

Go see the many active Linux PS3 messageboards or even I know of colleges with classes where students are doing lab work right on stock PS3s. Fri, 23 Feb 2007 01:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Rlwimi) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215738 http://osnews.com/thread?215738 Gee, wonder why along with all of your other misinformation you pretended the PS3 costs 100 dollars more than it really does.

$499 PS3 comes with 20 gig harddrive that Linux can be installed on just like the 60 gig version.

And any store bought drive can be popped right into either PS3 if you want at much larger harddrive to do development on. Fri, 23 Feb 2007 01:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Rlwimi) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215739 http://osnews.com/thread?215739 Point me to a single application that a typical Linux user might use on their white box that embraces the SPE units on a PS3?

As far as I know, the kernel patches for PS3 merely allow the OS to access the PowerPC core found inside the Cell. This PowerPC core is basically an enhanced G4. Fri, 23 Feb 2007 02:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Xaero_Vincent) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215742 http://osnews.com/thread?215742 $499 is the cost of the basic model in the US.

Go to some other parts of the world and you might see the price inflated a hundred dollars or more. Fri, 23 Feb 2007 02:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Xaero_Vincent) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215745 http://osnews.com/thread?215745 Just give a rest.

You're just another fanboy trying to spread FUD. Fri, 23 Feb 2007 02:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Rlwimi) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215751 http://osnews.com/thread?215751 What exactly makes me a fanboy?

The hottest console I own is an Nintendo 64. I much prefer my PC and Commodore 64 for gaming. Fri, 23 Feb 2007 02:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Xaero_Vincent) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215760 http://osnews.com/thread?215760 Every single thing you posted is the same tired old fanboy FUD.

We get it, you don't like the PS3. Now go away and find a N64, PC, or Commodore 64 thread to play in. Fri, 23 Feb 2007 03:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Rlwimi) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215761 http://osnews.com/thread?215761 And your torrent of PS3 FUD just keeps going and going and going... Fri, 23 Feb 2007 03:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Rlwimi) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215785 http://osnews.com/thread?215785 Let's be fair, it isn't FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt), but rather just a smattering of what's known as bashing. Yes, he disdains the PS3, yes, you recognize this and no, you don't need to respond to him unless you have opposing facts. He doesn't stop you from buying a PS3, and you certainly aren't going to get him to buy one. Fri, 23 Feb 2007 04:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (diskinetic) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215787 http://osnews.com/thread?215787 Well, honestly, that $600 for a PC gets you a core 2 duo with 2GB of ram, plus a 7900GS, hard drive, etc. Actually that stuff comes to under $600 without the microsoft tax. Quite a capable system.

The guy is asserting (incorrectly) that cell is no more powerful than an 800P3.

I personally think it's more interesting than that, but right now a PS3 purchase to run linux is riskier than buying a traditional system like the one above.

The cell's potential is untapped, although honestly I have no clue nor have I seen much data about what it can do for every day tasks. Fri, 23 Feb 2007 04:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bnolsen) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215794 http://osnews.com/thread?215794 Who cares if it's not the best hardware if you wanna run Linux? Who the f--k buys a PS3 just to run it as a Linux desktop anyway? (Or well, except people doing it just because they can just like with everything else.)

All the news post is that you get it preinstalled, not that it's the best linux workstation deal in the world.

Also my Nintendo DS can run Linux aswell ;/

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/98/378659567_1c4fd702e5_b.jpg

Not the best bang for the buck when it comes to Linux there either, atleast it can run irssi thru ssh and 802.11b Fri, 23 Feb 2007 04:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (aliquis) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215822 http://osnews.com/thread?215822 "Who cares if it's not the best hardware if you wanna run Linux? Who the f--k buys a PS3 just to run it as a Linux desktop anyway? (Or well, except people doing it just because they can just like with everything else.)"

It was mentioned before: The device is silent, an attribute hardly (and / or expensive) to add to an usual PC. :-)

"All the news post is that you get it preinstalled, not that it's the best linux workstation deal in the world."

That's correct.

Having a Linux preinstalled on a davice that's primarily used for gaming and therefore bought by gamers, this could be a good chance for Linux to get into the gaming market some more. If Joe Q. Powergamer thinks, "Wow, what's this? A Linux? What's a Linux? Uh... it's available for my PC, too! Wow! Maybe I can play my PS3 games on the PC!", game developers could develop more games to be used with PC's Linux (e. g. OpenGL, SDL).

So, maybe it's not about "it runs best", but about "it runs" and, of couse, a possibility of making alternatives for gaming (and everyday use) platforms more famous to the customers.

"Also my Nintendo DS can run Linux aswell ;/

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/98/378659567_1c4fd702e5_b.jpg"

Wow, it even implements the three useless keys found on usual PC keyboards! :-) Fri, 23 Feb 2007 06:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Doc Pain) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215831 http://osnews.com/thread?215831 Since 3D won't work anyway perhaps Terrasoft could use most of the 256MB VRAM differently. As swap, for instance:
http://hedera.linuxnews.pl/_news/2002/09/03/_long/1445.html Fri, 23 Feb 2007 08:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (lagitus) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215835 http://osnews.com/thread?215835 Hi bnolsen. Well the cell is a massively parallel vector processor, these are the strongs/weaks about it:

- excellent for running multiple floating point tasks such as (game engine, encoding and decoding video)
- Difficult to program for -- ALL software has to be optimized
- Poor single thread performance
- NO hardware Branch prediction, Extremely poor at running complicated branched code (like A.I. code)
- Highly specialized approach, the cell is first and foremost an MULTIMEDIA processor that is best suited for HDTVs and a gaming consoles processor second. It offers extremes -- very good at running game engine, very poor at A.I. code. Fri, 23 Feb 2007 09:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Governa) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215846 http://osnews.com/thread?215846 I think the huge problem with the PS3 is the lack of support for the graphics hardware.

Sony has long supported the homebrew game development first with Net Yaroze and then with PS2 Linux.

Granted with PS2 Linux you don't have 100% access to the hardware but there is some part of it exposed nonetheless.

I was hoping for the same time of support since Linux for PS3 was announced, but it isn't there. It seems that NVidia and Sony are just not listing to the requests.

Which is sad, because now Microsoft is making an invitation for homebrew developers with their XNA toolkit.

And from my experience within the game development community, the people will take this invitation.

I'm still waiting for Sony to change their mind, if not too bad and they just lost another customer. Fri, 23 Feb 2007 10:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (moondevil) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215851 http://osnews.com/thread?215851 and then I will be interested.

no seriously, I would LOVE to buy a PS3 that i could buy games for, and use as a fully fledged PC, as long as i don't feel i am buying crippled hardware.

you have the right to offer what you want for sale, i have the right to refuse purchase if the offer is unsatisfactory.

just go and pay nVidia to release a Linux PPC driver for the PS3 which can be made available for Linux users. Fri, 23 Feb 2007 11:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (REMF) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215878 http://osnews.com/thread?215878 "$600 for a PIII 800 MHz and 256 MB RAM, 256 MB VRAM for a fantastic frame buffer experience."

Wow, I think the only genuinely factual piece information your posts could possible contain is if they indicated the fact that you work for Microsoft or something. Honestly, the outright little disinformation campaign you have going (Gentoo runs FAST on my PS3 thankyou very much - I suggest you actually go andf try out a PIII 800 and then actually try and use a PS3 first hand rather than 'learning' about them on Digg' before trying to take the authoritative stance here.

I also have to wonder about the people on the net who are posting almost identical nonsense as though they are part of a PS3 first wives club or something. It's a product, get over it.Edited 2007-02-23 13:43 Fri, 23 Feb 2007 13:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (zetsurin) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215881 http://osnews.com/thread?215881 Sony haven't said much about their homebrew system, it's still er, brewing...

However OpenGL on linux has definitely been mentioned.

--

I doubt any power user (enthusiast?) would buy a PS3 as a replacement PC, but there's plenty of casual users who probably wouldn't even notice the difference. For them Linux pre-installed is pretty useful.

I plan to get one as a Cell development system, I want to see what i can get out of all those flops. That it plays Games and Bluray just adds to the fun... Fri, 23 Feb 2007 13:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Nicholas Blachford) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215900 http://osnews.com/thread?215900 So far, the PS3 may be the only embedded device to use the Cell BBE processor

Is this really an embedded device?...Isn't it a computer in a small case? Fri, 23 Feb 2007 15:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (FunkyELF) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215920 http://osnews.com/thread?215920 CFLAGS="-O99 -funroll-every-loop -mrice -mabi=rice -omg-optimized disable-all-instructions -DREENABLE_FAST_EXECUTION"Edited 2007-02-23 17:23 Fri, 23 Feb 2007 17:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bm3719) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215946 http://osnews.com/thread?215946 How about for people who want a gaming system that is also capable of checking e-mail, browsing the web and using instant messenger?

I doubt the percentage of people buying the PS3 to use solely as a computer is very high....

If that's the extent of your uses, the PS3 is a hell of a lot cheaper than buying both a computer and console for your living room. Add onto that the fact that the PS3 is also the cheapest Blu-Ray player on the market, and it really isn't that bad of a deal. Fri, 23 Feb 2007 18:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (rm6990) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215966 http://osnews.com/thread?215966 I am an owner of PS3 with 120GB hard drive running YellowDog Linux 5.0. I put YDL5 on PS3 it's fun but I never thought it would be practical.

It does not matter how much power or how many CPUs in PS3. Without much memory, Linux simply does not run very well. When I'm running YDL5 on my PS3, the hard drive is continuously being accessed because of the heavy memory paging to the disk. When I run Gnome and Firefox, my PS3 starts to page the memory to disk even harder.

To me, running YDL5 on PS3 is like running on a slow PC. Linux runs faster on my old Athlon XP with 1GB of memory PC.

And, out of the box YDL5 installation, it does not even read Blu-ray disc. So, I can't watch Blu-ray movies on YDL5. Even Blu-ray movies are cracked, I can't simply put in a Blu-ray movie and start watching like in PS3 OS mode.Edited 2007-02-23 20:02 Fri, 23 Feb 2007 19:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Vortex3D) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215980 http://osnews.com/thread?215980 And yet Linux is apparently heralded as an operating system sufficiently scalable to run well on embedded devices and to break the dreaded hardware upgrade necessities that have plagued Windows users for years. I mean, honestly, until it was announced that the PS3 was syupported to be capable of running Linux I never ever saw people complaining of minimum specs, all I remember reading was seeing people announcing that their old 286 or 386 had been given new life thanks to Linux.

And yet at the same time it's cool to announce the DS can run Linux as well as a lot of gushing and love sines in the direction of the WiiLi project, can people see what's going on here?

One final thought: Nokia N800 owners must really be suffering bad, since if a PS3 can't run Linux then heavan help them.

And some advice: Like I said before, give Gentoo a run on it. You'll think otherwise. In my experience it's orders of magnitude faster.Edited 2007-02-23 20:37 Fri, 23 Feb 2007 20:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (zetsurin) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?215988 http://osnews.com/thread?215988 It's not that Linux cannot run efficiently on 256Mb, but rather Gnome and Firefox are memory hogs. Try xfce, it should run much faster. Fri, 23 Feb 2007 20:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (stare) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?216379 http://osnews.com/thread?216379 I think there are some relevant facts missing in this discussion:
#1: Sony doesnt care about Linux and never has. Yes thats right, in europe computers get tax deductions. Thats why Sony sold all EU PS2s with the YaBasic program so as to define their console as a computer ("programmable device"..). There was some legal problems however with this apparent tax evasion in the UK, which is probably why Sony decided to go for a full OS with the PS3 to avoid any legal difficulties with their future taxation adventures. Plus by signing a deal with some small external Linux distributor they evaded pretty much all the development costs too.

#2: Sony loses 200$ per manufactured console. It is standard practice in the console industry to loose some money on the hardware only to regain on the software side. However this time the loss is rather substantial, so they better sell plenty of games with every one machine. How does bringing Linux to the masses (and to universities as mentioned above etc.) help them sell more software?! Yes it doesnt! Which is why they better gimp their Linux enough to be considered an operating system only by law. The day people line up to buy PS3s to run linux will be the day Sony goes bankrupt.

All I am saying is that Sony has no intentions to ever make PS3 Linux a sucess, in fact they better make sure it becomes a huge letdown to anyone who tries it to make them go back to the profitable "buy game-> get bored->buy another game" loop.Edited 2007-02-25 14:32 Sun, 25 Feb 2007 14:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (NetBean) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?216388 http://osnews.com/thread?216388 You might want to read sentences you quote. He didn't say that they aren't available, he said that they aren't used. And that is perfectly correct.

Terrasoft does not optimize anything for Cell and there is to that point virtually no Linux software available optimized for Cell and it is quite unlikely that there will be much Cell optimized software, because it is extremely complicated (as any multithreaded programming) and extremely much work.

Not to forget that all those win32 codecs won't work. Sun, 25 Feb 2007 14:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Alleister) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?216431 http://osnews.com/thread?216431 So because Windows XP Embedded exists i can run a p100 with Windows XP and it runs like a blaze?

You know, terrasoft doesn't port an stripped down ebedded Linux for PS3 but a full blown recent kernal. Sun, 25 Feb 2007 18:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Alleister) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?216434 http://osnews.com/thread?216434 The fact that the SPUs are supported by Linux does not mean they get used for any non Cell optimized software.

None of the important Linux apps have Cell Ports. There is no Cell optimized Firefox, Thunderbird, KDE/Gnome, OpenOffice (or any Office software), Mediaplayer, etc.

There are of course people writing Cell software... like numbercrunchers, streaming server services, proof of concepts, apps for the sole purpose of learning Cell Programming...

That is not the kind of software people will install on their PS3 except if they got it for learning Cell Programming, which i kind doubt will be a significant number of PS3 purchasers. Sun, 25 Feb 2007 18:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Alleister) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?216704 http://osnews.com/thread?216704 As much as I dislike Sony it doesn't do anyone any good to post fud and misinformed oppinions.

The Power Processing Element (PPE) core in the Cell chip bares no relation to the G4 or even G5 power cores
other than the ISA (the G4, unlike the Cell, isn't even a 64 bit core.) The Cell PPE (and the 3 Xbox 360 PPC cores, which are identical save memory and IO interfaces) derives from an earlier IBM experiment designed to create an efficient PPC implimentation that made minimal use of die space. The three main distinguishing features of this design are lack of OOO execution, minimal focus on branch prediction, and the dual-threaded nature of the CPU - one thread executes when the other stalls - waiting on memory for instance.

Comparision to an 800mhz P3 is a little underestimated - game developers have said that using a single core on the Xbox 360 is roughly twice as fast as the orriginal xbox which contained a 733mhz p3, so a better estimate would be a 1.4-1.5 ghz p3. Also keep in mind that the last of the P3s, which were 1.4 and 1.5 ghz, were actually faster at most things than the Pentium 4 until it hit 2 ghz.


The biggest bottle-neck with the PS3 is the lack of RAM. 256mb is very small by today's standards - the PC I bought 6-7 years ago came with 384... Following that is the lack of access the the 3D accelerator. The SPEs, while not yet supported in the mainstream applications, are there to play with for anyone who wants to.

PS3 linux isn't for someone wanting to replace their all-purpose desktop, its basically a cheap way for developers to play with the Cell, and to a lesser extent, a PC replacement for those users who do little more than browse the net and check their email. Mon, 26 Feb 2007 19:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Ravyne) Comments