I’m as ticked off as you guys at Sony removing the “install other OS” option from the PS3, but really, who are they kidding? Removing the ability to install Linux on something is like writing “HACK T3H PS3 SLIM” on the moon. So you can’t select a menu option? Don’t make me laugh! Linux fanatics would install it on their TI-83s if they could (and probably have). Mark my words: the PS3 Slim will have Linux running on it within a month of its release.
I don’t think I’m taking a lot for granted here or overestimating the community. Hackers and Linux lovers do this for fun. They do this on Sunday afternoons to relax. The first hack will rely on cracking the thing open. They’ll piggy-back off that with a savefile hack or something, and after that it’ll be something you can put on a USB stick, the way it is now.
Seriously, Sony removing that option will have about the preventative strength of putting up a sign that says “keep off the grass.” Am I right?
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for PS2 games. I was hoping there’d be a Slim Plus or something version that did PS2, but no. Tarnation!
[Penguin from here]
It will be hacked soon enough.
I hope so.
I will never buy a PS3 without Linux.
Its the main selling point of this thing.
2-3 games I really want to play and Linux.
One of this is missing and:
DO NOT WANT!
My best guess is they will leave it for community. I mean, they won’t provide any sort of service on that front. They will not break the hack either.
The might have felt, it’s just probably not wort their time to support Linux on PS3 anymore.
HA. Yea right. There is no way to stop people from doing whatever they want as far as software goes. That which is done can always be undone, or modified, or whatever.
What has kept me away from PS3 is, no answer to the main questions — Is it possible to play the usual PS3 games on Linux on PS3? Is it possible to DEVELOP PS3 games on Linux on PS3, games that can then be played on a normal PS3 with or without Linux?
I’ll help you with those questions:
1) If you want to play PS3 games you boot up your console and point it towards the game that’s usually either PSN bought or on a disc. If you want Linux to boot, then you point it to do so. So they are two completely different tasks. You could, however, get any Linux game that’s been compiled for your Cell processor and umm play it.
2) You can develop any game for any console if there is a dev kit for that OS. Having the Cell processor would mean that the code could be also used to compile and run in a different version aimed at, err well, Linux running on a PS3, or as you might know them “Ports”.
Know that there’s no way to “Dreamcast” your PS3 (look it up!).
Just look at the PSP, they are in a constant arms race with hackers, and so far, hackers seem to always win. It’ll be the same with the PS3
Do you know what chuffed means? Or was that “irony”?
Nope. I’m just an idiot. It sounded right when I wrote it, but now I look at it and think “what the hell was I thinking of?”
I was gonna buy the PS3 Slim, but I did not know about this. No way I am buying one now!
Might as well get a freaking xbox now, or nintendo wii for that matter….. The appeal for the PS3 Slim, just went down the drain for me at least…..
Don’t be so sure.
Linux is nice, but pretty underpowered on the PS3, its not really a system everybody is racing to install Linux on.
The original PS3 was never hacked/cracked, what makes you think they will hack this so quickly? These people havent even managed to get GPU support back in for the FAT PS3s, I don’t see how you expect them to hack it anytime soon.
I am surprised that NOBODY has managed to hack the PS3 yet however, considering the 360 (though not for homebrew) and Wii fell quickly, I wonder why the PS3 hasen’t been hacked, I highly doubt its really that much more secure than a 360.
Within certain hpc niches, the PS3 has been a “super”, rugged, and affordable way to cluster Cell CPUs, with clusters as large as 300 nodes thus far. Given the smaller form factor of the PS3 “Slim” allowing even more grunt per square foot, there will be plenty of motivation to cook up a repeatable, low stress Linux install process.
The Linux install option for the prior PS3 versions was never good anyway. It’s not underpowered, like a previous poster said, it’s run in a hypervisor, one that doesn’t perform well at all. As long as that was the case, there wasn’t much value to running Linux on the PS3 anyway, as it was slow as molasses, and not at all entertaining. Throw in the next fact that Sony never bothered to write Linux drivers for their hardware (PS3 Eye, PS3 bluetooth remote, etc) and Linux on the PS3 wasn’t a great experience.
Totally agree.
Maybe it’s been a good thing that Sony removed *their* support for linux. The hypervisor is like putting linux in a bird cage. This might encourage people to find a way to install linux, without using the hypervisor.
I hope that happens one day, because I won’t buy a PS3 if I can’t install linux. Sure, there are a few games I’d buy as well, but no go without linux.
Sony knows perfectly well that it’ll be hacked – but they would be able to use DMCA to fight off labs building clusters out of them – so they win, because they’re subsidizing PS3s, and labs don’t buy games.
“Don’t make me laugh! Linux fanatics would install it on their TI-83s if they could (and probably have).”
Nah…
They only figured out how to install it on TI-83+s…
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/other-distributions/91729-linux-ti-83-download.html
At least… It looks like it… Hmmmmmm… The link doesn’t work…
Here’s my thought to POSSIBLY get a linux distro. (like Yellow Dog) installed on the PS3 Slim. Feedback would be appreciated.
If the PS3 is using a technology that reads a HDD serial or in some other way knows that a drive has been swapped out with another drive, and therefor triggers a “full” format to make sure it’s a legitimate installation, one way I can think of to put a linux installation on it would be to have the HDD already loaded with the PS3 OS, fully updated with the latest firmware available from PSN, take out the drive and connect it to a computer, add a new partition to the back portion of the HDD so that you’re not changing the partition ID for the PS3 OS side of it, install the linux distro. to the new partition, edit the boot sector and MBR of the drive to employ a form of dual-boot capable bootloader (obviously any NORMAL OS will have this…especially a linux distro.),and then re-insert the HDD back into the PS3. In my opinion, this SHOULD work, unless Sony has done something on the hardware or firmware level that checks for this type of tampering as well. This should bypass any form of protection against the serial or hardware ID of the HDD at the very least, since it’s the same drive before and after the modifications.
I really cant see the hackers living up to the challenge. Its been quite some time since the the PS3 slim is out in the market, and so solutions yets :(