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Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability
As described in this
Playstation.com weblog entry, the upcoming Playstation v3.21 firmware
update will remove the "install other OS" option from the system.
"In addition, disabling the 'Other OS' feature will help ensure that
PS3 owners will continue to have access to the broad range of gaming and
entertainment content from SCE and its content partners on a more secure
system." Incidentally, once the firmware update is made, anything
on a Linux partition will be immediately lost forever, and not
applying the update will cause the system to operate at reduced
functionality.
This move runs contrary to promises
to PS3 owners made in the recent past.
There is a press release in Japanese which can be turned into something resembling English with Google Translate. (Log in to post comments)
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 14:46 UTC (Mon) by nurhussein (guest, #16226) [Link]
Is it possible to over-write the firmware entirely and then use it for Linux? If so, then we can still use them for Linux on Cell, only they can't be used for games at the same time.
Nope... Posted Mar 29, 2010 18:10 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] The same scheme XBox360 uses: firmware must be encrypted by individual CPU key or else the whole thing does not even start.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 19:58 UTC (Mon) by Kit (guest, #55925) [Link]
You could simply not upgrade the firmware. The firmware won't be a *forced* installation... if you're willing to not play new games, play online, get online content, and maybe even play newer BluRay discs.
Newer PS3s wouldn't be an issue as well, since newer PS3s were already incapable of installing Linux on them.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Apr 5, 2010 8:40 UTC (Mon) by TRS-80 (subscriber, #1804) [Link] You can play online by spoofing the webpage that lists the latest firmware to return 0.00.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 15:06 UTC (Mon) by ken (subscriber, #625) [Link]
I'm a bit sceptical. only 3 days before the change and it's going to happen on april 1 no less.
They can't be this stupid. A company removing stuff the the customer thought they bought can't be good business, in the long run nobody is going to trust anything from them again.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 15:18 UTC (Mon) by galens (guest, #23805) [Link]
This is the same company that released a music CD containing a rootkit. I think they have clearly demonstrated that they can be this stupid.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 15:23 UTC (Mon) by zhllg (subscriber, #26587) [Link]
precisely...
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 16:37 UTC (Mon) by trasz (guest, #45786) [Link]
This is also the first - and only - company that actually supported Linux on a game console. Stupid? ;->
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 18:15 UTC (Mon) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]
You'll note that pretty much the instant Linux was no longer officially supported, the protection got hacked. Personally, I think that was their biggest reason for doing it--why hack something to install another OS when it's already supported out of the box?
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 15:25 UTC (Mon) by Kit (guest, #55925) [Link]
Recently, a vulnerability was discovered in the PS3's hypervisor that would allow complete system control- which makes sense that they'd cite security as the reasoning for stripping out this functionality.
>They can't be this stupid. A company removing stuff the
They already removed the functionality from the newer generations of PS3, it was only the older models that still supported it. Sony also already has a reputation for flat out contradicting themselves, so this isn't that big of a deal to them.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 16:35 UTC (Mon) by trasz (guest, #45786) [Link]
What are you using it for? In terms of performance, Cell CPU is not that great, so the whole thing can easily be replaced by something more standard. Playing with the Cell architecture is fun, except that IBM terminated the whole thing, so there is no point. Besides, to really play with the hardware you need SDK, not Linux.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 16:36 UTC (Mon) by trasz (guest, #45786) [Link]
Whoops, wrong "reply" button. This is supposed to be the reply to Ballombe's comment.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 17:45 UTC (Mon) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]
"In terms of performance, Cell CPU is not that great, so the whole thing can easily be replaced by something more standard."
Do you have a link to back that assertion up? My understanding is that Cell is very, very great for floating-point calculations (see also the air force's recent 2200-ps3 purchase (http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/345642/Air_Force_T...). The Cell in the PS3 is very, very great for single-precision floating point, but only great for double-precision. More recent updates bring that up to "very great" for double-precision (not put into ps3s to keep 100% compatibility, natch, plus games don't generally need doubles).
It does require a pretty hardcore rethinking of how you code, which is the problem with Cell.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 17:56 UTC (Mon) by trasz (guest, #45786) [Link]
And this is the reason why IBM discontinued Cell altogether, even though it was all about using it in HPC before? ;->
Problem is, Cell is great on paper. In practice it's so much burden pretty much noone cares. It's easier to use GPUs instead.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 18:08 UTC (Mon) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link] "And this is the reason why IBM discontinued Cell altogether, even though it was all about using it in HPC before?"
Umm, that's another assertion, not a reason. Please provide a link backing up your assertion. I have. "X did Y with (negative thing) Z so therefore Z must suck" (even assuming that your (yet again unsubstantiated claim) that IBM has completely discontinued Cell and use of Cell technologies is a crap argument, due to the ginormous number of unknown quantities entering X's decision to do Y with Z. Regarding your assertion, perhaps you're thinking of IBM's discontinuation of a specific Cell product line, the 32-SPU model? From the Wikipedia Cell article I ref'ed earlier: "In practice it's so much burden pretty much noone [sic] cares." Between PS3 games developers and supercomputing installations, I'd say that you're wrong for my use of "pretty much no one;" of course, your definition of "pretty much no one" may vary. Hooray for vague wording! Now we get to haggle over what the definition of "is" is. "It's easier to use GPUs instead." Perhaps; GPUs come with their own set of fun tricks and code contortions, rather like Cell. In fact, there are a number of parallels. It's interesting that Cell is pretty much where projects like Fusion are going, which is the future of hardcore GPU use: a CPU with additional GPU-like demi-cores. (Incidentally, this is one way that Cell may live on even if IBM kills off the Cell add-ons!) Graphics cards have the definite advantage, however, in that everyone has them and you can get decent performance rather cheaply.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 30, 2010 3:33 UTC (Tue) by gmaxwell (subscriber, #30048) [Link]
I've coded for both CELL SPU and GPU (using CUDA).
I found cell SPU to be easier to use, and much easier to get started with.
OTOH, I suspect that the performance of well optimized GPU code often ends up so much higher than equally optimized code on CELL that the GPU still wins on the an flops/effort basis. It's also easier to scale a GPU deployment than PS3s and the IBM cell blades are very expensive, so GPUs probably win on a flops/dollar basis for most applications.
All of these high performance platforms are a bit obnoxious to code for, and their quirks can have surprising performance implications, YMMV.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 17:59 UTC (Mon) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]
For reference, AMD is just now shipping a CPU (two dies with 6 cores each) which is capable of 105.6G FLOPS (provided it keeps fed, so real numbers will be much lower):
"Todays fact: With up to 12 cores and a clock speed of 2.2GHz or more, this AMD Opteron 6100 Series processor has quite the number crunching power. Each one is capable of 105.6 Gigaflops (12 cores x 4 32-bit FPU instructions x 2.2GHz). And that score is for the 2.2GHz model, which isnt even the fastest one!" (http://blogs.amd.com/work/2010/03/24/amd-opteron%E2%84%A2...)
Contrast this with the now almost 2-year-old Cell chips in the IBM roadrunner supercomputer (#2 supercomputer in the world):
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 18:18 UTC (Mon) by johill (subscriber, #25196) [Link]
Beware -- doubles are 64 bit, AMD is talking 32 bit.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 18:36 UTC (Mon) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]
Hmm. You're right; it's not a great calculation regardless, but now it sucks a bit more. :)
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 30, 2010 15:31 UTC (Tue) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]
Regarding precision and flops, we have this, then, to help compare fujis to pink ladies:
"Several companies provide PCI-e boards utilising the IBM PowerXCell 8i. The performance is reported as 179.2 GFlops (SP), 89.6 GFlops (DP) at 2.8 GHz.[43][44]"(source: the wikipedia Cell article)
these are add-on boards you can just pop into your computer, e.g. from Mercury, for
(Nvidia's) Tesla's wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Tesla) indicates that it can do substantially more, with the doing "1260 Single Precision(SP) 630 Double Precision(DP)" (peak numbers; units are gflops; nvidia's info page at http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_tesla_C2050_C2070_us... says the range is 520-630GFlops double-precision) Regarding costs:
so it'll set you back a pretty penny too. :)
Interestingly, the power dissipation is similar (150W for Cell's board (http://www.fixstars.com/en/products/gigaaccel180/specs.html) vs 190W "typical" for Tesla (http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_tesla_C2050_C2070_us...).
I'm wondering where cell is going with IBM; it's pretty clear from what I've read that the tech's getting folded into other processors, probably newer Power.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 30, 2010 15:33 UTC (Tue) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]
Either way, it seems clear that using straight, conventional x86 CPUs for HPC may have a short life until Fusion and Larrabee (for the aformentioned future Power), if they go where they seem to be.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 30, 2010 17:51 UTC (Tue) by joib (guest, #8541) [Link]
Curiously enough, even AMD's own marketing seems incapable of calculating the theoretical max flops of their own chips.
Current generation Opterons can do 4 double precision (DP) flops per clock cycle, or 8 single precision (SP). The original Opteron did 2 DP or 4 SP. Thus the theoretical peak performance of a 12 core 2.2 GHz processor is 105.6 DP flops/s or 211.2 SP flops/s.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 15:51 UTC (Mon) by trasz (guest, #45786) [Link]
Exactly how many customers need Linux on a game console? Twenty?
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 16:15 UTC (Mon) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link]
My lab have a PS3 running 24/24 on linux. I would be very upset if the linux system was made unavailable by a firmware update. Fortunately since we never boot the PS3 OS, the firmware upgrade is unlikely to happen.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 18:12 UTC (Mon) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]
And the Air Force. And a number of other academics. And me too (fat PS3 was the cheapest way to get Cell experience, which is where things are headed (AMD Fusion to an extent, and Intel's Larrabee (if that venture ends up being successful; they discontinued the push into a discrete vid card)).
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 16:13 UTC (Mon) by mmcgrath (guest, #44906) [Link]
> I'm a bit sceptical.
They already sell PS3's at a loss. The academic types out there purchasing a bunch of PS3's for compute clusters cost Sony a lot of money. Maintaining the hypervisor probably isn't cheap either, so for Sony it probably doesn't make financial sense to keep that feature available.
I'm sad to see it go but I can see why Sony would not want to support it any longer.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 16:37 UTC (Mon) by frazier (guest, #3060) [Link]
> They already sell PS3's at a loss. The academic types out there purchasing a bunch of PS3's for compute clusters cost Sony a lot of money.
If this is a real problem, they could solve it by selling newer models without the feature, which is exactly what they did:
Taking the feature away from people who paid for it when they bought their system is flat-out wrong.
Here's communication from SONY from about a month ago stating that those of us who have the older "Other OS" models would continue to have the functionality:
Weak.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 16:42 UTC (Mon) by mmcgrath (guest, #44906) [Link]
> Taking the feature away from people who paid for it when they bought their system is flat-out wrong.
If you want the product exactly as you paid for it... nothing is stopping you from doing that. If you don't want a free update that allows you some functionality that's fine. If it prevents you from playing games that weren't available when you bought your system, that's your choice to make.
Yes, this sucks, yes it's inconvenient for lots of users, no it's not "wrong". You purchase proprietary stuff, you play by their rules.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 17:05 UTC (Mon) by frazier (guest, #3060) [Link]
Let me clarify:
Here's the message from SONY on Fri, 2009-08-21 at 09:58 -0700 (linked above):
(SCE is Sony Computer Entertainment)
...and now, a little bit over a month later, the function is getting disabled in a system update. This is wrong.
If I were to not update the system, that would also mean not receiving any future security updates. That is also wrong.
I understand your point about being tied to a single vendor, and while that does give them a unique position to screw the consumer over, it doesn't make it right.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 30, 2010 0:24 UTC (Tue) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]
That looks like estoppel to me as an amateur. Sony were under no obligation to make this statement, but they made it, if you reasonably relied upon it, they get to eat a liability for the resulting damages.
I'd say that "I want to return this now useless machine and associated Sony branded peripherals, games etc. for a full refund" looks plausible under that principle if you can prove that you indeed relied upon their statement.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 17:10 UTC (Mon) by farter (guest, #62197) [Link]
Pay more attention to actual details.
"Ability to sign in to PlayStation Network and use network features that require signing in to PlayStation Network, such as online features of PS3 games and chat"
SONY IS "stopping you from doing that".
This is not only wrong, but also should be punishable by law, at least in some countries.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 17:11 UTC (Mon) by DOT (subscriber, #58786) [Link]
Ah, so because they *have the power* to be morally wrong, it is morally *right* to be morally wrong?
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 15:42 UTC (Mon) by frazier (guest, #3060) [Link]
I'm quite disappointed in this. The Other OS option was a motivating factor in getting a PS3 for my home. I've also been pleased with the industry standard things they've been doing with the platform, such as USB ports and bluetooth controllers. I have a Logitech bluetooth keyboard and it types away nicely with the PS3.
I'll remember this change in the future, SONY.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 16:12 UTC (Mon) by DOT (subscriber, #58786) [Link]
That will be the last time I buy something from Sony. Their advertising can not be trusted.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 16:54 UTC (Mon) by Lionel_Debroux (subscriber, #30014) [Link]
Since when advertising can be trusted ? ;-)
While many of us here disapprove it, let's face it, we can't be surprised that they're making the move of locking the platform down, several months after their hypervisor was subverted. The quote that mentions security and gaming content is pretty clear: they're imposing reduced functionality in the name of (so-called) security, and (so-called) improved content.
A "anything on a Linux partition will be immediately lost forever" behaviour could be pretty class-action-worthy, just like unconditionally installing rootkits on users' computers was, a few years ago.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 18:55 UTC (Mon) by DOT (subscriber, #58786) [Link]
I'm not talking about commercials of course. I don't expect those to be anything other than misleading. But when a company says it supports a certain feature, then I trust that they will continue to do so. If they drop the feature, then they can't be trusted. And that's when I stop buying from such a company. Fool me once...
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 19:25 UTC (Mon) by foom (subscriber, #14868) [Link]
> Fool me once...
Surely Sony has fooled you more than once by now. They've been rooting for the "evil" designator
Much longer Posted Apr 3, 2010 16:04 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Only 10 years? Remember that Beta lost against VHS because Beta was "closed" and nobody else could use or expand the format. Not to speak about Minidisc formats, those damn memory cards... Sony has been playing the evil card with consumers for decades.
Much longer Posted Apr 3, 2010 19:28 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
This is not just Sony, either. This is how the Japanese tiger got great:
strict quality control and absolute, harsh, insane levels of secrecy (initially to prevent industrial espionage). The secrecy is in some places so high that factories *owned by Japanese companies* in other countries did not have access to complete specifications of the parts they were making. It's well past time to drop that in some areas, but why change what worked? ("It's no longer working" has never been an acceptable answer in the corporate world...)
Much longer Posted Apr 3, 2010 21:28 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Why change what worked?The signs are all over the place, and have been there for decades: Beta failed, the Walkman franchise (overextended like a zombie first with Discman, then with Minidisc contraptions) has been killed by the MP3 rage, and Sony makes a big chunk of their revenue from the PS3 -- a system which lives or dies by the uses that other developers make of it, and which thus needs to have a set of specifications as standard and complete as possible. Not to speak about proprietary formats for everything, from music storage to video connectors to memory sticks. All gone and forgotten. Of course, there are signs also pointing in the opposite direction: Apple has won over the MP3 scene while holding a level of secrecy which would be the envy of those same Japanese companies you mention, and the Xbox has moved from all-standard components to custom processors. In the end open technology always seems to win, but proprietary companies can make a lot of money in the interim. That place seems to have been taken by Apple nowadays.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 30, 2010 18:07 UTC (Tue) by waucka (subscriber, #63097) [Link]
Sony has been on my personal boycott list for quite a while. DRM rootkits,
several slightly different proprietary flash memory "standards", various other bizarre proprietary technologies like camera connectors, and now this. Sony will never get my business.
Sony Playstation to lose Linux installation capability Posted Mar 29, 2010 17:30 UTC (Mon) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]
Oh crap. *that* day is coming up again.
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