Feature Articles

Linux on the PS3: First Encounters

By Vincent Chang - 30 Nov 2006

Our Thoughts

Our Thoughts

Overall, it was an interesting experiment trying Linux on the PS3. The rawness of the installation could be attributed to the fact that we were just trying to fit a square peg into a round hole: the PPC version of the Fedora Core 5 we installed was not meant for a PS3. Terra Soft and its just released Yellow Dog Linux should prove to be more user friendly, since it is tailored for the PS3 and hopefully it will have all the required drivers. After all, most of our issues stemmed from the lack of graphics drivers and getting that right would be a major step towards making the PS3 a viable platform for Linux.

Sony has already sounded off to the industry and its open platform looks credible at the moment, so you can expect to find more Linux based developments for the PS3. Yellow Dog Linux is the first and hopefully not the last in the line of such Linux distributions. The rest is up to the open source community, though the PPC nature of the PS3 may be a hindrance, as most projects are likely to be for the x86 architecture. There's no way (yet) to run Windows through a Linux emulator like Wine for instance, since the architecture is radically different.

In the end, similar to the state of PS3 games and Blu-ray at the moment, there is a lot of untapped potential in the PS3. The idea of getting a full-fledged Linux based computer along with a game console and Blu-ray player appeals to the geek within us, while we would certainly like to see emulators like MAME or ZSNES running on the PS3 just for kicks. However, at this moment, there is also a lot of work to be done. We'll update this article (or better yet, dedicate a whole new article) once we get a copy of Yellow Dog Linux on our PS3 and maybe there will be some progress then.

It's more frowns than smiles so far for our Fedora Core installation but we may have better luck with the 'Made for PS3' Yellow Dog Linux distribution. Watch out for it!

PS: In case you're wondering how to get your PS3 back into its pristine condition, don't worry. You can revert back to the default PS3 XMB interface anytime by pressing and holding down the power button during a reboot of the PS3. There will be a slight beep and the PS3 operating system will be back. Subsequent reboots will always load the native PS3 system. To access the Linux partition again, you will have to go to System Settings and change the Default System to Other OS. Similarly, after doing so and booting into Linux, your PS3 will always boot into Linux until the next time you perform the power button reset.

Note that this article was based on our experience of running Linux on the PS3 and we are in no way liable if the outcome is unlike what we have presented. So proceed with caution if you are game on giving it a shot and read up on the third-party resource links in our article to extend your understanding.

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