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More than a toy, PlayStation 3 does Linux (InfoWorld)
InfoWorld
reports on efforts to run Fedora Core 5 on the Sony PlayStation 3
platform.
"If you're one of the fortunate few to have scooped up a Sony PlayStation 3 (and not gotten mugged in the process), and you're looking for a tax break, I have some good news: You might be able to count your new "toy" as a business expense.
Seems that Sony was good enough to make available a download called Open Platform for PlayStation 3, which enables users to install third-party apps on their PS3s. Some Linux enthusiasts are already taking advantage of it by loading their shiny new systems with Fedora Core 5 OS."
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More than a toy, PlayStation 3 does Linux (InfoWorld) Posted Nov 22, 2006 12:37 UTC (Wed) by hildeb (subscriber, #6532) [Link] Why is FC5 so emphasized? Does it work with Ubuntu as well?
More than a toy, PlayStation 3 does Linux (InfoWorld) Posted Nov 22, 2006 13:03 UTC (Wed) by pbardet (guest, #22762) [Link] Maybe because Ubuntu doesn't need publicity to get used ;-)
More than a toy, PlayStation 3 does Linux (InfoWorld) Posted Nov 22, 2006 14:15 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Probably because FC is more cutting edge.
Also because Fedora Core is IBM's platform of choice when it comes to developing for the Cell proccessor. Their CBE SDK is for FC. Barcalona supercomputing people have Fedora core builds they are using on their cell supercomputers (which you can download). etc etc.
It's quite a happenning thing.
While this is going on you have Ubuntu wanting to drop support for PowerPC. So go figure.
Their CBE SDK:
Also comes with a good cell emulator for Fedora Core so you can get your taste of PS3 before having to go and buy one.
The FC image for 3.x Cell blades.
Also if your a developer curious about it here is a nice page on the subject of programming for CBE.
It's mostly run by what looks like game programmers and it uses C code and GCC for their examples and such.
More than a toy, PlayStation 3 does Linux (InfoWorld) Posted Nov 22, 2006 14:31 UTC (Wed) by richo123 (guest, #24309) [Link] "Probably because FC is more cutting edge."
That is a rather big and dubious statement. You FC fanboys don't have "Upstart" Scott Remnant or "Telepathy" Daniel Holbach. So nahnahnah!
More than a toy, PlayStation 3 does Linux (InfoWorld) Posted Nov 22, 2006 15:08 UTC (Wed) by eklitzke (subscriber, #36426) [Link] I'm not sure if you're joking or not... Redhat certainly employs more Linux developers than Canonical, especially kernel developers and developers for enterprise apps. Fedora also has much better Xen support than Ubuntu, and SELinux to boot.
Not that Ubuntu doesn't have better functionality/developers in certain areas... it's just that generally Redhat has more developers and includes a lot of bleeding edge software before other distros, including Ubuntu.
More than a toy, PlayStation 3 does Linux (InfoWorld) Posted Nov 22, 2006 16:32 UTC (Wed) by job (guest, #670) [Link] Also Red Hat keeps staying true to free/open source software.
More than a toy, PlayStation 3 does Linux (InfoWorld) Posted Nov 23, 2006 13:29 UTC (Thu) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] Fedora also has much better Xen support than Ubuntu, and SELinux to boot. And this is, presumably, exactly the functionality you can't do without when you look to run Linux on your PlayStation 3 ...
More than a toy, PlayStation 3 does Linux (InfoWorld) Posted Nov 23, 2006 15:27 UTC (Thu) by thebluesgnr (guest, #37963) [Link] Red Hat contributes so much compared to Canonical that you can't even make a comparison.
More than a toy, PlayStation 3 does Linux (InfoWorld) Posted Nov 23, 2006 16:42 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] Is there any chance both the Ubuntu and the Red Hat/Fedora fanboys might simmer down a bit? These comparisons are growing tiring. Almost makes me wistful for the Gentoo fanboys...
More than a toy, PlayStation 3 does Linux (InfoWorld) Posted Nov 23, 2006 16:57 UTC (Thu) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] Is there any chance both the Ubuntu and the Red Hat/Fedora fanboys might simmer down a bit? (I'm neither the one nor the other -- I run Debian on all my machines.) My point was that arguing for Fedora on the PlayStation 3 in favour of Ubuntu because Fedora comes with SELinux and better Xen support looks a bit ridiculous, since few people are likely to deploy a PlayStation 3 (of all machines) in a context where these features are required. As far as the ongoing dispute between Ubuntu and Fedora is concerned, whoever owns one of those PlayStations can install Yggdrasil Linux on it for all I care.
More than a toy, PlayStation 3 does Linux (InfoWorld) Posted Nov 22, 2006 16:31 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Ya need to cut down on the caffiene, maybe?
I am not a 'Fedora Fanboy'. I am actually a Debian fanatic.
When Ubuntu begins working on stuff similar to GCC development, kernel development, Stateless linux, Selinux, GFS and related clustering technology, ldap directory systems and other such stuff then get back to me about Ubuntu being cutting edge.
This isn't Ubunt vs Fedora or any such stupid thing. I don't use either. I am just explaining why IBM would choose to use Fedora as the OS of choice for their SDK and other things.
Ubuntu does good things that nobody else has been able to do. Such as setting up a good support infrastructure for new users to Linux. That is not insignificant.
More than a toy, PlayStation 3 does Linux (InfoWorld) Posted Nov 23, 2006 14:16 UTC (Thu) by rvfh (subscriber, #31018) [Link] Just for completeness, I have to say that Gentoo's wiki is a mine of very good information, too. In fact, Gentoo is the first distro one would expect on bleeding edge products, no?
More than a toy, PlayStation 3 does Linux (InfoWorld) Posted Nov 24, 2006 19:46 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] I wouldn't be suprised if Gentoo people have a working PS3 version right now that is in beta state.
More than a toy, PlayStation 3 does Linux (InfoWorld) Posted Nov 24, 2006 8:22 UTC (Fri) by rvfh (subscriber, #31018) [Link] While this is going on you have Ubuntu wanting to drop support for PowerPC. So go figure. Note that Cell processors are 64-bit PowerPC-based, whereas Ubuntu is thinking in not supporting the 32-bit PowerPC architecture anymore.
More than a toy, PlayStation 3 does Linux (InfoWorld) Posted Nov 22, 2006 15:53 UTC (Wed) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link] It might be because the tinkerers are more likely to use Fedora. "Freedom to tinker" is currently not Canonical's number 1 priority.
Fedora vs Ubuntu, NOT! Posted Nov 22, 2006 15:29 UTC (Wed) by dowdle (subscriber, #659) [Link] Is it just me... or is every reference lately to Red Hat and/or Fedora Core on LWN receiving Ubuntu troll responses? I know I'm not leaving Red Hat nor Fedara Core troll responses on any Ubuntu threads!
Fedora vs Ubuntu, NOT! Posted Nov 22, 2006 16:27 UTC (Wed) by peace (guest, #10016) [Link] At least it's no longer the Gentoo fan boys...
Fedora vs Ubuntu, NOT! Posted Nov 30, 2006 2:04 UTC (Thu) by tomsi (subscriber, #2306) [Link] I guess this is because the fanboys / trolls are more interesting in what is hot and new as such. When the next hot new thing comes they will jump to that.
And Ubuntu has taken the role as "hot new distro" over from Gentoo, so the noisy crowd has left the gentoo community, leaving it to the people who use it and like it for what it is.
256 MB RAM ? Posted Nov 22, 2006 15:33 UTC (Wed) by mikov (subscriber, #33179) [Link] Technologically speaking, it's really an intriguing piece of machinery, rivaling, if not trumping, the high-end desktop systems on the market." Yeah, right with 256 MB RAM. Don't get me wrong, it is really insanely great to be able to run Linux on PS3 - heck I intend to buy one someday so I can play with something other than x86, but to tout it as a desktop replacement is just silly.
256 MB RAM ? Posted Nov 22, 2006 16:33 UTC (Wed) by peace (guest, #10016) [Link] I'm using YDL on an /original/ iMac (233 MHz) with 256MB RAM right now. Iset it up for my sister-in-law and it is a little poky but completely suitable for it's tasks. A ps/3 would surely outperform this iMac and play games to boot. If it's easy to switch between the two modes it could be really useful as a general purpose computer.
256 MB RAM ? Posted Nov 22, 2006 16:35 UTC (Wed) by xanni (subscriber, #361) [Link] I have both desktop and laptop machines that still only have 256M RAM, and Ubuntu and especially Xubuntu run just fine. It's not enough RAM to run VMware, but apart from that it's really not limiting in any significant way. There are an enormous number of things you can do with a 256M RAM machine.
256 MB RAM ? Posted Nov 22, 2006 17:40 UTC (Wed) by mikov (subscriber, #33179) [Link] You are probably right, but the claim in the article that the PS3 istrumping high end desktops was an exaggeration to say the least. You could buy a desktop with 512 MB RAM and a 3.2 GHz CPU for about $300.
256 MB RAM ? Posted Nov 22, 2006 19:53 UTC (Wed) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link] That all depends on what you want your desktop to do. I personally am salivating over the thought of running POVray or something similar using the Cell's processing power. Of course, until POVray 3.7 gets out of beta, that won't be possible, since the developers are firmly in the closed-source mode. (And may I just say that keeping a program in closed beta for over a year is kind of ridiculous...? if you're not Microsoft, of course, in which case it's expected, but I digress...)
256 MB RAM ? Posted Nov 25, 2006 20:54 UTC (Sat) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Screw Povray then.
Yafray is the way of the future for open source raytracers.
Integrates very well with Blender and also has support for parrellel processor rendering.
256 MB RAM ? Posted Nov 27, 2006 2:21 UTC (Mon) by LetterRip (guest, #6816) [Link] POVRay, Yafray, Aqsis, Blenders internal renderer etc. will take quite a bit of work to take advantage of the SPEs. Personally I hope someone does the work to port Blenders simulation systems (Physics is already, but also fluids, cloth/softbody, and particles) to take advantage of SPEs, as well as the Renderer.
LetterRip
More than a toy, PlayStation 3 does Linux (InfoWorld) Posted Nov 23, 2006 2:25 UTC (Thu) by augustm (guest, #41831) [Link] There was a preprint put up yesterday on Cell processors usedfor biomolecular simulation:
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/physics/0611201
The author quotes speeds 10x faster than an Opteron.
He had to recode the application however in order to use
Note NOT a PS3, rather a Cell blade, but it gives /some/ idea
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20050525/105...
More than a toy, PlayStation 3 does Linux (InfoWorld) Posted Nov 24, 2006 19:52 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] They should be about the same level of performance. I beleive the same CPUs being used in the IBM blades are used in the PS3 except that the PS3 has one of the SPU cores disabled. I could be wrong though.
The PS3 should be a boon for low-end clustering. Stuff to do with rendering movies or special effects or transcoding and stuff like that.
Depending on the sort of work you need to accomplish you can use a half a dozen PS3 from Gamestop or whatever that would do more work then a entire cluster of many dozens Intel P4 or Opteron machines.
The type of workloads are going to be limited, unfortunately, buy the amount of RAM aviable... Which I think effectively is 512megs (the CPU can directly access the VRAM I beleive, but probably not without extra work.).
Right now it's not to price wonderfull, but once you can get a PS3 for around 300 bucks or so then it should be nice for any graphic designer or 3d renderer or somebody that needs to transcode HD content to have a couple of those hid under the desk running Linux.
More than a toy, PlayStation 3 does Linux (InfoWorld) Posted Nov 25, 2006 8:18 UTC (Sat) by shimpei (guest, #11634) [Link] Well, the paper does show that 8 SPEs can turn in 15-20x performance of a single-core Opteron, which translates to 12-15x performance for the 6 user-accessible SPEs on a PS3. The problem is, his Opteron code does not use SSE! If SSE is correctly utilized on the Opteron, who knows what the gap will be?
Mind you, I do own a PS3 and I'd love to see its potential proven, but I do not think this article was terribly useful as a x86-vs-Cell benchmark.
More than a toy, PlayStation 3 does Linux (InfoWorld) Posted Dec 12, 2006 23:24 UTC (Tue) by Dpdk (guest, #42191) [Link] Have none of you noticed that the ram isnt ddr? its xdr. Its really new and supposedly much faster than ddr.
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