Slashdot Mirror
Emulation Explosion On the PS3 Via Linux
Marty writes "The PlayStation 3 has recently seen an explosion
of releases of emulators and games for the Yellow Dog Linux distro for PS3;
once you have installed Yellow
Dog Linux you then have the ability to try out MAME,
SNES, Amiga, Dos,
Commodore and Atari
emulators (that's the tip of the iceberg) and such games as Quake
2, Duke Nukem 3D, Hexen 2 and Alephone. Time to start installing Linux on your PS3?"
Yeah, on the ps3 you have a hard time playing games for other consoles on it, on the 360, you have a rough time playing it's own games...
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
I'm a geek who believes in moving forward, not backwards. Forget emulators, we should be working towards full utilisation of hardware and not pine for nostalgic. It isn't necessary to get task A to work on product B just because we can.
I'm also not your regular geek like the Slashdot crowd are. I have found the geek lifestyle to be very empty and unfulfilling. Get away from fiddling with computers for the hell of it; they're just tools. Using a PS3 to run old-school emulators is a waste of hardware.
The only problem with your analysis is that the Xbox 360 CPUs+GPU combo probably has just as much raw power as the PS3, but developers can actually use it. This is why none of your bullet points are "good games". P.S. Basic Xbox Live is free. You only have to pay for some DLC and to buy more stuff off the wire, identical to the PS3 situation. The simple truth is that you are a fanboy. That's okay, but don't try to pretend you're something you're not (a great visionary for giving your money to Sony). As for the Linux install, the PS3 is a crappy Linux machine unless you have an actual use for the Cell.
I sure wish someone would do the math on this folding@home thing. Odds that it will actually help cure cancer: unknown. Increase in cancer rates due to F@H clients using lots more power, causing them to be responsible for the burning of more coal and oil which raise cancer rates on their own, let alone the environmental cost of mining: certainly significant, if not directly measurable.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Sony. The bringer of great gems like "most people don't even know what a root kit is". Their wonderful involvement in the RIAA and the lawsuits. Their rather amusing and unbelievable lies about the PS3. The whole vibrating controllers are impossible because our controllers are just too super fantastic and complex was pretty amusing. So...Every PS3 and PSP purchased supports these flaming assholes and their crusades of stupidity and consumer ass raping.
Microsoft. I hope I seriously don't have to give any examples of how they have been raping the consumers and otherwise fucking up the market. I just don't have enough time to type them all up.
So...When you buy an XBox or PS3/PSP you are supporting these assholes. There is no excuse. For all the people that whine and bitch about the evil shit those two companies routinely engage in, I would suspect at LEAST 50% of those people rush out to buy their latest super console. If you don't like their behavior, quit giving them fucking money. Any excuse for purchasing one boils down to "I really wanted one and I have no principles so I decided to be a hypocrit." Now...I suppose this doesn't apply to the fanboi crowds that think MS or Sony can do no evil, but they are still supporting these two companies ass raping the consumer in the markets they do business in.
Nintendo. I honestly don't know if they have been up to dick hole shenanagins. I wouldn't really be surprised, but they have been around a long time and don't seem to play the same cut throat games. They also tend to stick to their niche market and aren't a sprawling megacorp trying to dominate every conceivable market. So...they get the benefit of being innocent until proven guilty.
In the end. You are right, buying a specific console does not make you better than someone else. However I submit the following modification.
If you bought a Wii, you are no better than anyone else.
If you bought a XBox/XBox360, you are lesser than everyone else for supporting those assholes.
If you bought a PS3/PSP, you are lesser than everyone else for supporting those assholes.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
Certain percentage of geeks simply matures and "doing cool stuff" is not enough.
That's not maturity. That's no longer being a geek. What separates us from the rest of the population isn't really that we're more intelligent that others, or that we work with technology. What separates us from the rest is that we're curious about things and we want to try them out, whether they work well or not.
Or maybe it is exposure to actual, non-academic, world of software development where cool ideas tend to work out as dumb waste of time.
In the industry of software development anything that doesn't make a profit or has a chance of making a profit is a "dumb waste of time." In the world of hobbies, wasting time is the goal, as long as you have fun while doing it.
If you have your pet project, it also has to be useful. It needs to be something worthy your time when not with family/working. It ideally should give you job-translatable skills (haha). And you definitely do not want to reinvent wheel or spend time making someone elses reinvented wheel working.
By definition, your "pet project" is worthy of your time as long as you enjoy working on it. And if what you're after is knowledge, then reinventing the wheel is the only way to get knowledge as to how to manufacture the damn wheel. Sure, you could buy one, but then you haven't intellectually gained anything. Obviously it's not what you want to do at work, because it's not profitable, but it's often what you want from your pet project.
Installing Linux on PS3 is easy. Installing emulators on Linux is easy. Its nothing to write home if you do both. Hell, its wasted time if you do it because you could be actually look for those hidden hardware gems instead making videos of you playing Mario.
It's time well wasted as long as it's something you want to do and you had fun doing it. Turn in your geek card and have fun with your MBA.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.