Playstation 3 to run Linux

Ice_Box

http://news.com.com/Sony+delays+PS3+launch+to+November/2100-1043_3-6049479.html?tag=nefd.top

Mad or what.

Nietzschean

i dunno seemed quite probable, afterall ibm would have devloped linux kernel's to run on the cell chip already, cuts down dev requirements for the media centre apps.....

nadir

they said linux would be on the HD ages ago.
I don't like all this DRM crap, I wont buy one becase of it.
Cell processor is however supported in linux, IBM contributed the source a while back, so once someone cracks it, it should make a decent linux gaming box, xonsidering the nvidia binaries ought to run on it too.

MrVestek

Lol loading Cedega onto the PS3 and running PC games from the PS3... imagine that!?

seanos

From my experiences of Cedega, 'running' may be a bit of an exaduration.

I don't think I'd mind DRM as much, if it worked.
It's hilerous how broken DRM is in general, and the % of setups it doesn't work on (I'm talking about WM DRM, with WinXP, and WMP9/10).
REAL managed to make their DRM worse than WM funnily enough (must have taken some work).

Haven't heard much of PS3's DRM stuffs, but think quite from Ron Gilbert sums it all up really,
"I figure that for every hour I spend on implementing copy protection, it keeps it off the Internet for 3 hours.".

Reckon price will be main reason to turn people off buying one, as opposed to DRM.

vinks

ibm already have a blade system running cell processors, its just a prototype but its working

http://news.com.com/IBM+shows+Cell+blade+in+action/2100-1010_3-6048428.html

it looks cool, but the cell itself is targetted at a specific market(s) so it probably wont run typical userland stuff too well unless its ported over properly.

Cormic

I read somewhere that the PS3 has been delayed until the end of the year.

jesus_thats_gre

Not much of a surprise considering the have it on the PS2 too like..

Nietzschean

Cormic wrote:

I read somewhere that the PS3 has been delayed until the end of the year.

well the japanese launch is a delay...but end of the year is an improvement on the estimates of the european launch being early 2007.....

going to be some fun trying to produce enough units and the logistics of a worldwide simultanious launch....

vinks

nadir wrote:

they said linux would be on the HD ages ago.
I don't like all this DRM crap, I wont buy one becase of it.
Cell processor is however supported in linux, IBM contributed the source a while back, so once someone cracks it, it should make a decent linux gaming box, xonsidering the nvidia binaries ought to run on it too.

i didnt think there was an official nvidia driver that run on the the cell architecture, i thought the cells were power series based?

Blowfish

yeah the cell has a powerpc core in there (among 8 spe's ), but the gfx is custom stuff so sony will prob make them support it

the_syco

Erm, won't this just make DRM easier to crack, now that its on a Linux box?

Nietzschean

thats questionable, every drm system to date has been broken, i don't think this will have a huge impact on that....if its done properly(there have been some very horrible implementations of linux in integrated devices, the pma430 for example) it will certainly make the ps3 superior as a home media device. as a UPNP player last i heard the xbox360 can't do video....not very usefull that...

djmarkus

Wonder it its going to use Xorg as its display system(highly unlikely), then it would be able to use, KDE and the like

Blowfish

don't see why not, read an interview somewhere where they said ps3 would be able to be used for web browsing, so they are gonna need some sort of decent interface, and sure why not X? its free after all, and would annoy microsoft

NutJob

Blowfish wrote:

don't see why not, read an interview somewhere where they said ps3 would be able to be used for web browsing, so they are gonna need some sort of decent interface, and sure why not X? its free after all, and would annoy microsoft

Could lynx it But anything that annoys Microsoft is good

Blowfish

I actually think this is a very smart move by Sony. Some of the interviews seem to suggest that although it will ship with Linux, they are leaving it open so that if other OS vendors (Microsoft, Apple) want to they can Support their own OS on it.

This leaves Microsoft in an interesting position. The PS2 sold over 100 million copies, so if they decide not to port windows, they could end up handing over those 100 million to Linux, which will NOT make them happy. These will be home users ( a fair few of which won't even have heard of Linux before ), and not just techies, and to some of them, if their PS3 can check email, browse the net, and do pretty much everything a PC can, and is actually cheaper than most PC's, why would they need a PC at all? It will make people aware that there are actually alternatives to windows out there.

If Microsoft decide they will support it, they will still have problems. The fact that the Playstation 3 can do FAR more than the Xbox 360 would be obvious, and the Xbox will look ridiculous in that it couldn't support windows, but its rival could. This would boost Sony's sales and hurt Microsofts Xbox.

Will be interesting to see what will happen. Personally, despite DRM, i probably will get a PS3. They sell all of the consoles at a loss, and make up for it with the games. This means that you are going to have damn good hardware going cheap, which me likes:)

NutJob

Blowfish wrote:

Personally, despite DRM, i probably will get a PS3.

What DRM is active in the PS3 bar the game copy protection??

Is this the rumor of registering games so only that console can play them?

If so ... Has it been confirmed?

Blowfish

heh, i think the DRM is the bit that made it delayed. i haven't seen any complete details on it though, but tbh i wouldn't be buying it (much;) ) for the games. if it runs FOSS, then its fine by me

nadir

vinks wrote:

i didnt think there was an official nvidia driver that run on the the cell architecture, i thought the cells were power series based?

aye, nothing stopping you from running open source drivers though.
granted performance isnt the best, but with some more development, it could kick ass.

scojones

Interesting stuff. Even with the DRM I will be buying one of these bad boys. I won't be playing many games with it