Game Over For Sony and Open Source?

Glyn Moody writes "Sony has never been much of a friend to hackers, and its infamous rootkit showed what it thought of users. But by omitting the option to install GNU/Linux on its new PS3, it has removed the final reason for the open source world to care about Sony. Unless, of course, you find Google's new distribution alliance with Sony to pre-install Chrome on its PCs exciting in some way."

Comments

Who Cares

[MightyMartian]

Buy a damned computer, or one of the mobiles you can install Linux on.

Re:Who Cares

[PrescriptionWarning]

without the use of most of the computing power when you actually put linux on it, it seemed gimped to begin with. In other words they weren't exactly being open source friendly from the start any way.

Re:Who Cares

[vadim_t]

A console is a computer, just with annoying restrictions tacked on.

But generally good advice, that's why I don't buy consoles in general, and avoid Sony like the plague.

Re:Who Cares

[mweather]

My PS3 IS a computer.

Re:Who Cares

[zindorsky]

Buy a damned computer, or one of the mobiles you can install Linux on.

Maybe you should RTFA before posting ...

Of course there are a million machines you can install Linux on, but the PS3 was particularly nice because of its Cell architecture. That allowed for some super-computer like performance for a low, low price. Lots of research institutions used PS3 clusters for low cost supercomputing. Now that future is jeopardized.

Re:Who Cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because you don't have a desire to use it doesn't mean others shouldn't either.

The world isn't made up of you. That's like saying everyone should drive a 20 year old honda and live in a one bedroom apartment (also known as your mother's basement), just because you do.

I've never owned a console, but if other people want to tinker with them, it's not my place to say they shouldn't be able to.

Re:Who Cares

[sopssa]

From the article

Sony explained their decision on the Playstation 2 developer forum, in a post that has since been removed:

"The reasons are simple: The PS3 Slim is a major cost reduction involving many changes to hardware components in the PS3 design. In order to offer the OtherOS install, SCE would need to continue to maintain the OtherOS hypervisor drivers for any significant hardware changes--this costs SCE. One of our key objectives with the new model is to pass on cost savings to the consumer with a lower retail price. Unfortunately in this case the cost of OtherOS install did not fit with the wider objective to offer a lower cost PS3."

And this is understable, seeing how much PS3 price has come down from its launch.

Old PS3 owners still have the option, it just affects the 'slim' model.

Re:Who Cares

[tepples]

Buy a damned computer, or one of the mobiles you can install Linux on.

Three things:

• That's another box to buy and connect to the TV. I thought people chose the PLAYSTATION 3 to get away from having to buy an extra box for everything.
• If you have an SDTV, you have to buy yet another box to convert the VGA signals from the PC to the composite or S-Video signals that the console understands.
• Apart from EA Sports, there appears to be a stigma among major PC game developers against releasing multiplayer games designed to run on a single PC connected to a TV.

Re:Who Cares

[tepples]

Old PS3 owners still have the option, it just affects the 'slim' model.

For how many more months will the Old PS3 remain available with a hardware warranty? I have a feeling Sony will discontinue the Old PS3 by the fall shopping season, just as it quickly discontinued the original PS2 in favor of the slim PS2.

Re:Who Cares

[hattig]

And so is your microwave, TV, DVD player, calculator, etc.

It's not sold as a computer but as a games machine cum media box. It had the option in the past to become a computer, but with its limited memory it just doesn't make sense now.

You can probably buy a more powerful PC for the same price these days. Sure, it'll have integrated graphics, but a dual-core 2GHz Pentium or Athlon II will whip a Cell in desktop tasks - unless you need to use the SPUs, but maybe a cheap graphics card will provide an OpenCL/CUDA/etc alternative that's better. Linux on PS3 never got to use the GPU anyway...

Re:Who Cares

[tepples]

It's not sold as a computer but as a games machine

But there are a lot of games that the PS3 can't play because the game's developer isn't a big enough company. If a platform is supposed to act as an incubator for game studios, it needs either A. the ability to act as a computer or B. something like the XNA Creators Club. The original PS3 had A (to an extent), the Xbox 360 and iPhone have B, and the Wii and slim PS3 have neither.

cum media box.

That just sounds wrong ;-)

Re:Who Cares

[Yokaze]

Do you think? They reduced production costs from $400 to $250. How much did scrapping the OtherOS hypervisor support contributed to these costs savings?

Taking the goal of Kaz Hirai of selling roughly 16 million units (1.5e8 in 9 years), increasing the costs by 10 cents per unit will give you a yearly budget of 1.6 Mega-bucks. So, I'd wager the guess, it was well less then 5 cents per unit.

The point was simply making more profit, which is understandable.

Re:Who Cares

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

linux on PS3 runs on a hyper-visor that hides most of the architecture, this means no access to the vetorial units, GPU and the powerPC CPU embeded on the cell chip is limited to some 600 MHz.

you can bet that those researchers using PS3s also bought a development kit from sony that allows them to develop natively to the PS3 proprietary OS, giving them full acess to all the resources.

Re:Who Cares

[the_humeister]

Of course there are a million machines you can install Linux on, but the PS3 was particularly nice because of its Cell architecture. That allowed for some super-computer like performance for a low, low price. Lots of research institutions used PS3 clusters for low cost supercomputing. Now that future is jeopardized.

Lots? More like "barely any." The only entity that has done anything significant is IBM with their Roadrunner supercomputer. A network of several PS3s is not a supercomputer.

Re:Who Cares

[the_humeister]

Three things:

• That's another box to buy and connect to the TV. I thought people chose the PLAYSTATION 3 to get away from having to buy an extra box for everything.

Yes, that's why there's PS2 compatibility. Oh wait, there isn't so now I have to connect my PS2 to play PS2 games. Besides, how many people use their PS3 as the main computer anyway? I'd rather get a Dell computer that comes with more than 256 MB of RAM for my $400 thank you very much.

If you have an SDTV, you have to buy yet another box to convert the VGA signals from the PC to the composite or S-Video signals that the console understands.

And if you have your PS3 connected to an SDTV, you're wasting the entire purpose of the PS3: playing Blu-Ray and playing games in high definition.

Re:Who Cares

[daskinil]

I think you under estimate the cost of software development, test, and validation. Could easily cost a few million. Also I doubt they are counting their savings based on the optimistic lifetime expectancy of the PS3. Especially since this is only a single hardware revision, and you'd have to factor the cost of maintaining the drivers across all revisions. Either way I doubt it saves you more than a few dollars, but thats alot considering the number of ps3 users that actually plan to do this,

Re:Who Cares

[gbarules2999]

It's a shitty computer for anything other than games, though.

Re:Who Cares

[msimm]

Funny isn't it, if a console is just a small computer wrapped in a larger DRM layer.

Re:Who Cares

[nomadic]

A console is a computer, just with annoying restrictions tacked on.

But much cheaper, and with far less software glitches.

Re:Who Cares

[sunderland56]

For how many more months will the Old PS3 remain available with a hardware warranty?

If you're interested in running Linux on a PS3, you probably already own one. If you don't, Sony has given you fair warning to get a "chubby" PS3 while they are still available.

Besides, I don't think this is going to stop anyone from running Linux on the slim PS3. It's not like the iPhone comes with a "install other OS" option in the boot code.

Re:Who Cares

[tepples]

And if you have your PS3 connected to an SDTV, you're wasting the entire purpose of the PS3: playing Blu-Ray and playing games in high definition.

What about playing PS3 games that happen not to have been ported to PS2? Or would you claim that any other game in the same genre is a close enough substitute?

Re:Who Cares

[radish]

It's already discontinued - available "while supplies last".

Re:Who Cares

[Toonol]

But it's DRM that has been completely inoffensive and pain-free. That's the difference. I don't have a problem with copy protection. I wouldn't mind nailed down DRM on my pc, if it simply stopped games from being copied. The problem with DRM on the pc is that it goes further than that... it tracks you, it breaks things, it modifies your setup, it takes away legitimate functionality, it hinders free development... It ends up being the Sony rootkit, which should have put some Sony execs in jail.

If DRM meant that I always had to put the Starcraft 2 dvd in my computer when I wanted to play it, and NO OTHER RESTRICTION, I might actually buy the game. Instead, DRM seems to mean 'contact Blizzard every game for permission to play. Here's my IP, battlenet ID, etc., etc...'.

Sigh. I'm sure console games will eventually go that route, though.

Re:Who Cares

[Khyber]

The Slim PS3 might be more hackable without the hypervisor being around. Odds are greater that one could better unlock the power of the PS3 since there's no hypervisor restricting access to the hardware directly.

Re:Who Cares

[Khyber]

Wait, what?

I own a PS3 and PC, and from what I see at the game shelves at GameStop a LARGE majority of PS3 games are also available on PC. UT3, GTAIV, GRID, Prototype, and much, much more.

Oh, look, there's Orange Box for the PS3.

Re:Who Cares

[LoRdTAW]

You should care if you want to develop for the cell processor or want to build a cheap and powerful cluster. Currently there is no other stand alone Cell powered computer available besides the PS3. IBM only offers two different Cell processor blade servers which would cost well over ten thousand dollars. The PS3 is the only "personal computer" that is cell powered. Even if some company came along and started to offer a Cell powered PC the price will be many times that of the PS3.

So for anyone who is interested in Linux Cell computing this is a major blow. Sonylooses money on the hardware (consoles) and makes money on the software. People or organizations who buy PS3's for Linux/Cell development or clustering are costing Sony money. Its a logical business move but sucks for hobbyist developers or researchers. I was hoping myself to snag a new PS3 for me and my brother to tinker with Cell programming under Linux and regular Gaming. Looks like I am going to have to buy a PS3 now before I cant get a new Linux friendly model anymore.

Re:Who Cares

[seebs]

Maybe someone who wants to mess with Cell?

I actually did make a couple of tries at getting a non-PS3 Cell. Mercury didn't even bother to respond in any way at all to my emails (although they did start spamming me two years later).

For $400 or so, you could get a slightly weakened Cell. Or for... Who knows? I couldn't even get the other vendors to return queries. Which of these is more appealing to a hobbyist?

Re:Who Cares

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you have your PS3 connected to an SDTV, you're wasting the entire purpose of the PS3: playing Blu-Ray and playing games in high definition.

A friend of mine bought a PS3 yesterday and we hooked it up to a SDTV. We played Little Big Planet for hours, seemed plenty fun and looked good in SD to me. I play 360 at home on a 56" HDTV so I know what effect HD has on the visuals of games. Personally, I think the point of the PS3 is primarily to play games. All the HD/blu-ray stuff is an added benefit, it's nice, but not necessary to enjoy the unit. If I couldn't purchase an HDTV right now, I wouldn't hold off on a PS3 or Xbox simply because the TV can't display the higher resolution. Better to be enjoying the new games in SD and eventually upgrade to HD than to not have anything to play. (Yes Wii may make more sense for an SD TV, but the game selection seems to be primarily focused on a younger crowd.)

Re:Who Cares

[jpmorgan]

Nobody uses the PS3 for supercomputing these days. The ugly secret of the PS3 is that its 'extreme performance' was mostly marketing. While it was fairly fast at release, it is ridiculously complex to code for. You're talking about a machine with 9 distinct memory spaces, 4 instruction sets and 3 compilers. And while Sony may market it as having '2 teraflops' of performance, it only has about 450gflops of total programmable computation power. The vaunted Cell processor only clocks in at around 250GFlops, which you get pretty easily with Core i7 (Nehalem)... and it's a LOT easier to get peak performance out of the Core i7. Let me repeat that for emphasis it is mindbogglingly simpler to get peak performance out of the Core i7. And if you're willing to spend more a little time and money to code to a specialized platform, GPU computing with CUDA (and OpenCL once it matures) spanks the Cell. You can buy multi-GPU machines from NVidia that are pushing 4 teraflops programmable.

Ultimately though, the biggest killer of the PS3 in supercomputing is all that power is single precision, and single precision only. You can get away with single precision SOMETIMES in scientific computing, but more often than not it's a deal breaker. Even when you can use single precision, it's often in a mixed precision context. The PS3 has no double precision support, and that kills it.

The PS3 is awesome on paper, but in reality it's just awful.

Re:Who Cares

[jpmorgan]

Oh, and I should add that in Linux you have no access to the GPU. So you only have the Cell's 250GFlops of programmable performance, unless you're a game developer.

Re:Who Cares

[Chees0rz]

Exactly. The console experience (especially now-a-days) is beautiful... I really have no complaints about the user experience. I especially love those blue tooth controllers. Everything is standardized and you know it will just work.

Maybe PCs are catching up, and I just don't know it? But I don't feel compelled to have a PC hooked up to my TV just to play games... especially when the only input device I have is a keyboard/mouse...

(are game controllers standardized, and usable for every game? Not sure...)

Re:Who Cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Pain free? have you ever heard of titles breaking, or that you have to pay for every add-on that PC users get free, or that you can't upgrade your hardware like a PC and constantly stay up to date?

Both systems have the same problems with DRM, no need to delude yourself thinking that the problems with DRM are lesser with a console. Console DRM is 100x worse in general, and costs more too. $60 PS3 vs $40PC for the same game? easy answer. Guess which one can get bluray later, and guess which one is now losing linux support supposedly.

Re:Who Cares

[VGPowerlord]

Ooh, bad idea mentioned Orange Box.

EA ported Orange Box to PS3 and Valve refuses to support it.

That's not such a big deal for most of the games in it (excepting performance problems), but Team Fortress 2 has had continuing updates on the PC platform (and the Xbox 360 version has even had a few bugfix patches).

Re:Who Cares

[thtrgremlin]

all you are saying is that proprietary restrictions work both ways, which is exactly one of the issues brought up by FOSS promoters about proprietary software. The Commodore, Amiga, Atari, and others of their time were "computers" or "consoles" based on what was desired by the USER. Today, users PAY console / SDK developers to provide "protections" against open third party development to provide an incentive of non-competition to large gaming companies by ensuring that the only games / software is going to be on a shelf next to their own product released by other big game companies that also had to pay big licencing fees. Sony doesn't care how many games for their system are sold other then its relationship to potential future licencing agreements. Units sold tell game makers how large their market is to determine cost benefit of buying the licence and producing / porting a game.

So just because despite everything inside of it being the same as any other desktop / laptop mix of parts that happens to have an IBM Power7 CPU for which WINDOWS will never be ported doesn't change anything. Does something become a "PC" when MS whack pack signs the drivers?

But of course, many arcade machines still running today have worn out, been gutted, had their entrails replaced with a Linux Server running MAME. So maybe it would be most accurate to say that consoles are arcade machines with annoying unnecessary restrictions tacked on.

But well said; on the upside you could probably put something like that on your resume and get a job at Sony, or even Apple or Microsoft in no time. Hell, you could probably get elected to public office.

Re:Who Cares

[Khyber]

That 256MB of XDR will kick the crap out of any 1GB of DDR2.

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/products/dram/Products_XDRDRAM.html

What matters is how you USE the memory to achieve the highest performance.

Re:Who Cares

[thtrgremlin]

You aren't very familiar with Sony, are you?

Re:Who Cares

[sexconker]

A computer is a clock, just with silly lights and buttons tacked on.

Re:Who Cares

[guruevi]

Never owned an X-Box I see. I don't own an X-Box either but against my advice my brother-in-law did and he has had nothing but trouble with it. He had it in and out of service for 5 months, this is his fourth X-Box in less than 2 years (warranty) and now it's eating his disks. The disks are not under warranty. Too bad he can't make a backup copy of them.

Re:Who Cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if your a muppet running doze, doing email, web and other trivial crap. Get into serious number crunching and you'll find it's completely different matter, especially at the price point.

Re:Who Cares

[Anonymous Coward]

But much cheaper, and with far fewer software glitches.

FTFY.

Re:Who Cares

[sexconker]

Plenty of microwaves operate with 0 computation.

The door being open/closed acts as a physical circuit breaker.
The timer (on microwaves with a dial timer) is completely physical as well, and serves as the second circuit breaker.

If the circuit is closed, radiation flies, a light lights, and maybe something turns.

Re:Who Cares

[Khyber]

"I'd rather get a Dell computer that comes with more than 256 MB of RAM for my $400 thank you very much."

If you only had a CLUE as to what that 256MB of XDR will do. 4 GHz RAM (What's your puny DDR3 running?) and a smaller form factor (74 pin vs 200+) and more power efficient IIRC. Oh, what's the bandwidth on your DDR3? Up to 1.6 gigabit per second max? XDR does up to 4.8 gigabit per second max.

Basically that 256MB of XDR kicks the crap out of 3-4GB of DDR2 or 2GB of DDR3 without thinking about it.

Re:Who Cares

[sexconker]

PS3 has PSN.
Wii has Virtual Console and WiiWare.

Re:Who Cares

[nog_lorp]

So, you've never had a scratched disk and been forced to shell out another $60 bucks to get a game you already own?

I also find it offensive and painful when I can't run my own code on my computer.

Re:Who Cares

[nog_lorp]

PS: development machines and SDKs costing thousands of dollars tends to hinder free development.

Re:Who Cares

[loufoque]

What you don't seem to understand is the *reason* why people want to run Linux on it.
That's because the Cell is an incredible architecture that has a lot of processing power. Putting Linux on it is basically a requirement if you want to do any high-performance computing with it.

A lot of research institutes made whole clusters out of PS3s, since they're the cheapest way to acquire Cell processors, to explore the computing power of such a beast.

The real motive is that, since Sony doesn't earn any money by selling the console and that all the money they get comes from games, and since those buyers are not going to buy games anyway, there is no use in providing support to those users.
So if you just invested a few millions into buying a cluster, you just got pwned by Sony who decided they didn't care about you anymore and that you'll have to solve the bugs of the platform yourself.

Re:Who Cares

[nog_lorp]

The original PS3 had A (to an extent)

Well, not really, at all.
With no hardware access and no accelerated graphics, and all running under virtualization, PS3 OtherOS didn't really provide a platform for small developers.

That problem is definitely an important one though.

Re:Who Cares

[Blakey Rat]

and avoid Sony like the plague.

I embrace the plague, and *still* avoid Sony. That's how much I hate that company.

Now you'll have to excuse me, I have some itching boils and should probably go lie down.

Re:Who Cares

[CronoCloud]

Never had a scratched disc, perhaps the people complaining that they need "backups" in case they scratch the discs need to take care of their valuable things better.

Re:Who Cares

[Entropius]

More people are working on it, though. There was a bunch of buzz at an international lattice QCD conference this summer about porting lattice code to Cell -- the general consensus was that we're going to have to retune everything for a compute-rich, bandwidth-poor environment, but once all that's done and the code is ported over, Cell > x86 for performance per dollar.

This is from people who've actually tested stuff -- gotten a bunch of Cells and ported code and looked at numbers. I don't remember all the details but the folks doing it knew what they were doing.

Re:Who Cares

[Entropius]

Sure, if you only need 256MB of memory, the faster memory is better.

Memory's not something where you can trade speed for capacity. I don't care how fast it is, if you need more than 256MB you're going to be hitting swap every time you want to scratch your balls to remember where you put them.

256MB isn't enough for modern desktop computing.

Re:Who Cares

[Anonymous Coward]

"linux on PS3 runs on a hyper-visor that hides most of the architecture, this means no access to the vetorial units, GPU and the powerPC CPU embeded on the cell chip is limited to some 600 MHz."

Have you actually tried using linux on the PS3? The powerPC CPU runs at 2.4 GHz, I think, and has something that closely resembles hyperthreading (shows up as 2 cores under /proc, but it's not a true 2-core architecture). You have access to the SPEs through libspe2. There's no access to the GPU, and for X applications, it shows. The unaccelerated framebuffer driver is usable, but slow. This gives the impression of being like a 600 MHz PC for interactive applications, but is not relevant for computationally-intensive work.

I guess we'll all have to move to GPGPU processing now...too bad. The Cell seemed like a more interesting architecture, and more in tune with the needs of research (eg. good support of double precision, etc.)

Re:Who Cares

[CronoCloud]

We've told you what to do: Do a prototype on your PC, put it in your portfolio and apply for a job at a regular dev house, get some experience behind you, THEN get a small team together if you want and start your own dev house. Travel to Chicago or Silicon Valley or Seattle, just do it.

Re:Who Cares

[thtrgremlin]

Have you opened one?

First of all, I don't think many microwaves are Turing Complete. If televisions are, it is a relatively new thing. To my understanding, most of the translating that goes on in a TV is hardcoded, and not really "processed". Decent DVD players use laptop parts past the drives with ONLY the parts necessary to get a proper signal out to a tv / amp. Those restrictions are NATURAL rather than unnatural. Engineers didn't take time and money to take a complete set of working hardware and figure out ways to make it not work. Many calculators make decent computers with respect to their hardware, especially if it has a full keyboard, but again, any restrictions there are natural, not artificial.

Further, Hardware accelerated X11 kernel extension for Linux on PS3 was released almost 2 years ago.

Sometimes hardware just is what it is and can do what it will do. Without artificial restrictions, hackers will easily be able to do what they want with the raw power of the device and bend it to their will. artificial restrictions just means it takes more time and effort which may or may not be worth it. Companies can also HELP by releasing information that can assist hackers in doing whatever they want. I would like to hope that Sony is just no longer doing a lot of the kind work to make it especially easy to install Linux; a complete 180 from providing hypervisor drivers to flat out DRM seems unlikely. I am sure the mod community will catch up in a few days.

Re:Who Cares

[CronoCloud]

Yes, LInux on the PS3 runs under a hypervisor, but your information is quite incorrect. You have full access to the dual threaded PPC core (with Altivec) and it runs at the full 3.2 GHz speed. You also have full access to 6 SPE's. What you don't have is full access to the RSX, only framebuffer, but that's okay if you only want to do serious number crunching as a researcher. They use off the shelf PS3 hardware.

Re:Who Cares

[Anonymous Coward]

It still can't beat out a GPU for number crunching in either price or performance.

Re:Who Cares

[RiotingPacifist]

The guy that owned the xbox and compromised the xbox360 security, claimed the only reason that the ps3 was safe from pirates was because they let you run all your otherOS/homebrew stuff, it will be interesting to see if this happens or if
1) homebrew are happy using the older consoles
2) homebrew try but fail to cack it
3) pirates crack the new (weaker) ps3 without homebrew's help

Re:Who Cares

[shentino]

Except with DRM the nail file being used on the CD is in the hands of a company who has a vested interest in selling it to you again.

Re:Who Cares

[CronoCloud]

Besides, how many people use their PS3 as the main computer anyway?

Raises hand.

Think about what the majority of non-gamer people use computers for: web browsing, some IMing, e-mail, sending pictures to grandma, maybe using Word, or more likely the word processor in Works.

I can do all that on the PS3 under Linux. And if I want to play games, besides NetHack, one ps3-boot-game-os later I'm back in what Sony calls GameOS

Re:Who Cares

[Darkness404]

Sure, but most applications are made to use the RAM as little more than a fast storage device. So the more RAM the better. Yes, when programmed for XDR you can have some amazing results, but most programs simply aren't and therefore need lots of slow RAM because they are programed for capacity and not for speed.

Re:Who Cares

[nxtw]

Some Windows games have special support for Xbox 360 controllers, I believe mainly those that are also released for the Xbox 360. The controls automatically map and force feedback works in the same way as it does on the Xbox - you just have to load the game. Of course, you need a special adapter to use an Xbox 360 wireless controller on a PC, as these do not use Bluetooth.

I've seen Fallout 3 on a PC and on the Xbox 360. The PC was a unremarkable Core 2 Duo system with a Radeon HD 4670 (which cost $90 back in late 2008). The game was played on a 40" 1080p LCD TV. The PC completely blew the Xbox 360 away, graphics-wise. Although the Xbox 360 can output at 1080p, it renders most games at lower resolutions and then scales. The PC rendered the game at 1080p and at a higher framerate. Even with AA disabled on the PC, the picture was significantly better. The PC was also quieter, used less electricity, loaded the game faster, and (when using suspend to RAM) powered on faster.

Re:Who Cares

[nomadic]

You think games for the Sony PS3 have a higher rate of bugs than computer software?

Re:Who Cares

[tepples]

Wii has Virtual Console

Only for previously published games on older systems.

PS3 has PSN.
Wii has [...] WiiWare.

For established developers. As far as I can tell, one has to do an internship at a major dev house before applying for a WiiWare or PSN license for one's own dev house.

Re:Who Cares

[GoRK]

They still have to support the feature on "Fat" ps3's so the software engineering and support cost is there regardless of the new model. The Hypervisor itself is at the absolute core of the PS3 regardless of whether or not it's hosting the XMB, GameOS, or OtherOS, so the software is basically running on the PS3 Slim already. I believe very strongly that there has not been a hardware change that would have affected supporting the OtherOS install and that this is a deliberate move by Sony to remove a popular feature. With the PS2 slim at least they were able to pass off dropping Linux support as a semi-legitimate hardware problem.

As to why they did it, I can only speculate. First, I think that Sony may believe that an exploit may be discovered in the Hypervisor that could open the door to piracy (a la the PSP). Secondly, the rumor is they are still losing money on the hardware. If this is true, given the price reduction, smaller size, and lower power requirements of the PS3 slim, it actually becomes more attractive to build into HPC clusters. Sony may not in this economy wish to hemorrhage millions of dollars building these inexpensive supercomputing clusters all over the place.

Re:Who Cares

[Funk_dat69]

PS3s are more useful for prototyping before moving to IBM or Mercury Cell Blades (which have double prec)

And while we're stating broad generalizations, I would think the 256MB memory limit is the bigger impedance to using the PS3 is a meaningful way.

Anyway, it's a bit disingenuous to put a 4 year old chip up against a new one and claim proof that the same old architecture is better. There are certainly lessons to be learned from how Cell gets its performance.

Re:Who Cares

[Anonymous Coward]

the only inthe only input device I have is a keyboard/mouse... put device I have is a keyboard/mouse...

I say the exact same things about consoles... "The only input device I have is 5-7 buttons and two joysticks." I refuse to play FPS on a console and don't understand how anyone can competitively play. Even "great" Halo players seem crappy compared to what I and others can do on a PC FPS game. In general, I would much rather have a keyboard and mouse to play ALL video games. Note, this is just my preference, and I find it interesting that you have the exact opposite opinion as I.

Re:Who Cares

[the_humeister]

Great, and how well does Open Office work on 256 MB of memory? Sure you can use it, but it's rather excruciating. I'd rather get a computer with more than 256 MB of memory to do all that stuff.

Re:Who Cares

[tepples]

Travel to Chicago or Silicon Valley or Seattle, just do it.

First I'd need to know whether you'd agree with the following statement: "Video game development is not something to be done as a part-time job; it's either your primary day job or nothing."

Re:Who Cares

[Tetsujin]

But it's DRM that has been completely inoffensive and pain-free. That's the difference. I don't have a problem with copy protection. I wouldn't mind nailed down DRM on my pc, if it simply stopped games from being copied. The problem with DRM on the pc is that it goes further than that... it tracks you, it breaks things, it modifies your setup, it takes away legitimate functionality, it hinders free development... It ends up being the Sony rootkit, which should have put some Sony execs in jail.

The difference is that you're dealing with DRM on a highly restricted platform (one you have already accepted as being highly restricted) versus DRM on a relatively unrestricted platform. The DRM on consoles does all the same things (and more, perhaps), you just don't see it because most people don't use their consoles in ways other than intended by the manufacturer.

Re:Who Cares

[the_humeister]

Basically that 256MB of XDR kicks the crap out of 3-4GB of DDR2 or 2GB of DDR3 without thinking about it.

That is until you need more than 256 MB of memory. Then it goes to disk swap, and then even old SDRAM is faster.

Re:Who Cares

[rbanffy]

They could have a PS3 no-strings-attached edition that could be sold without subsidies. The catch is that it would boot off unsigned disks and you could install whatever you fancied on its bare hardware.

It would be a tad more expensive than an ordinary PS3, but I think many people would consider it, specially among Slashdot readers.

And while they are at it, is there a way to run a Cell off regular DDR2/3 memories?

Re:Who Cares

[Quarters]

My rerfigerator is a a computer. My thermostat is a computer. My car's engine has a computer. My remote control is a computer. I don't get persnickety about not being able to Linux on those devices. Why should I, or anyone else, get upset that I can't put Linux on a console? The other poster is right. If you want to install Linux and use it buy a device that lets you easily install and run arbitrary code. You'll never achieve the mythical "year Linux takes over the desktop" if you keep wasting time trying to put it on everything *BUT* desktop computers.

Re:Who Cares

[rbanffy]

In these GPGPU/OpenCL days, I seel less and less incentive to run a computer with a Cell processor in it apart from the fact its's totally windows-proof

Re:Who Cares

[master811]

EA ported Orange Box to PS3 and Valve refuses to support it.

That's more down to the ex-Microsoft, PS3 hating Gabe Newell being in charge there.

Re:Who Cares

[BikeHelmet]

But much cheaper, and with far less software glitches.

Both of those are debateable.

Yes, a Tower costs more than a Console, but what about accessories? How much does WiFi cost for an XBox360? Extra controllers? An HDD upgrade?

Total cost of ownership is probably about the same. No comment on the software glitches part. :)

Re:Who Cares

[Anonymous Coward]

"Video game console development is not something to be done as a part-time job; it's either your primary day job or nothing."

My apologies about using one of our resident terrible memes, but I had to fix that for ya.

(Sorry about the Anon reply; I'm at work and moderating today)

Re:Who Cares

[CronoCloud]

Takes a while to start, but once it does, it's fine. I tended to use AbiWord anyway, since I have much more use for a word processor than the other "office" style applications. Besides, at one time not so very long ago 256MB was one of the standard configurations for computers running WinXP and Microsoft Office. I'd lay odds that there are still computers on desktops with that configuration doing work today.

I do have VRAM swap enabled, that helps. Since Linux on the PS3 is framebuffer only, it's possible to use the video RAM as very fast swap, it's enabled by default in YDL 6.2

Re:Who Cares

[CronoCloud]

If you want to make money at it, probably yes. Though I am not a developer.

Re:Who Cares

[popeye44]

My Chubby PS3 thinks your Xbox360's Power Supply is Obese. :-]

Linux "I've ran it on mine" worked ok but nothing spectacular was possible as there was no graphics access. It had possibilities but they were never realized without access to ALL the hardware.

Re:Who Cares

[digitalgiblet]

What is this "console" of which you speak? Why do you refer to this as "2009"? Clearly your time-space continuum is out of whack. I recommend a sharp blow to the head. In the future we have determined that this is the cure for many head related ailments like amnesia, Temporal Dropsy, and demon possession.

Re:Who Cares

[Anonymous Coward]

But that film "Grandma's Boy" told me otherwise! /console game development dreams smashed, in tatters, destroyed.

Re:Who Cares

[Moryath]

3) pirates crack the new (weaker) ps3 without homebrew's help

Why not 4) homebrew and pirates work together semi-implicitly to crack the new (weaker) PS3 as happened with the Wii?

The Wii's "pirate" and "homebrew" crowds are not that different. Yes, there are the standouts (like marcan, whose definition of "piracy" often puts him at odds even with other people normally considered homebrewers, such as people who enjoy rewriting/redrawing banners for the hell of it and eventually led to the modern "bannerbomb" hack) but for the most part the question is not "what" they do, but "with what intentions." For instance, a utility capable of installing a homebrew game is usually equally capable of installing a copied download title. A utility to preserve "non-preservable" save games (like Super Mario Galaxy's save file, which for some inexplicable reason won't normally let users copy it to the flash card for safekeeping/transport) can easily upload hacked files full of cheat codes or worse. Little bits of code here and there have all sorts of purposes.

It's my guess that we'll see the "pirate" and "homebrew" circles working together, especially the emulator crowds (countdown to a PS3 snes9x port, just for the fun of it?). And they'll crack the new PS3, likely in a way that cracks the old "chubby" PS3 as well, at which point there'll be a softmod for the PS3.

Re:Who Cares

[Khyber]

If every PS3 game you own is an exclusive then you're just a fanboy.

Last count, out of 130 titles I've looked at, 82 have either a PC port or were originally developed on PC and ported to PS3.

They said Metal Gear Solid 4 was going to be PS3 exclusive - guess what bucko? 360's about to get it.

Re:Who Cares

[Sparton]

Hilariously, if you take away the whole prodigy thing, the guy making his own game (of such detail, at least), and settling important business decisions over the results of playing a game, that movie is disturbingly reflective of large-studio game development.

Re:Who Cares

[Gizzmonic]

They still have to support the feature on "Fat" ps3's so the software engineering and support cost is there regardless of the new model.

So, developing and testing new Linux drivers for the new I/O controllers and video hardware costs nothing? Are you shitting me, Pyle?

Re:Who Cares

[Khyber]

"256MB isn't enough for modern desktop computing."

I'd bet a fuckton of Amiga and Commodore64 users would laugh in your face right now.

Since gaming is the most intensive thing most any computer can do nowdays (besides pure astrophysics calculations) if a little PS3 with 256MB of RAM can run the same game that requires 2GB on a PC I'd say 256 Megs is plenty for modern computing - Current OSes don't offer much of jack shit over what windows 98 offered and windows 98 did all that fun shit just fine with 128 megs or LESS, besides the latest and greatest shiny directX and a better file system and some enhanced security that should've been present in the first place.

Re:Who Cares

[spire3661]

THey had something similar for PS1 called Yaroze, it was basically a slightly gimped, RELATIVELY cheap dev kit.

Re:Who Cares

[Khyber]

You know, bunches of games do disk swapping on a PC, but that little PS3 running the same game doesn't disk swap at all and looks comparatively the same, and it's doing it with less RAM than we find in modern computers.

LEARN EFFICIENT AND COMPACT PROGRAMING.

Re:Who Cares

[Gizzmonic]

Pain free? have you ever heard of titles breaking,

On a console? Is that like when PC games are released early in the alpha stage and the first 3 months are so are devoted to patching the game into a somewhat-workable state? And a broken console can't stop me from doing work (at least not directly, heh heh) but a broken PC means not only can I not play games, I probably can't work either.

or that you have to pay for every add-on that PC users get free,

Ah, but you can sell your console games when you're finished (for the most part). That's much better to me than getting some crappy after-the-fact add-ons.

or that you can't upgrade your hardware like a PC and constantly stay up to date?

You mean that crushing feeling you get when your PC that used to be bleeding edge gets sloooower and sloooower every time you install a newer game? Don't miss it.

Re:Who Cares

[Sj0]

It must be nice having such a simple and stable life that you can be so self-righteous about DVDs.

Personally, I've moved around so much and lost so many games(When you've just found out you've got 3 days to pack for a 1000 mile move, sometimes things get lost or thrown out), I just gave up. Now I tend to buy games from services like Steam and X-box live, because then I don't need to worry about having some bauble to maintain access to my software.

Re:Who Cares

[tepples]

I had to fix that for ya.

I take it your reply is along the lines: "Console is a day job; PC can be a second job." But my point is that not all game genres are suitable for the monitors typically attached to PCs, and therefore not all game genres are suitable for a part-time job.

Re:Who Cares

[Darinbob]

Game over man! Game Over!

Re:Who Cares

[tepples]

With no hardware access and no accelerated graphics

...you can still make a 2D game. And unlike PCs, used fat PS3 consoles are guaranteed to have outputs for legacy TVs.

Re:Who Cares

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll take the software glithes and you keep your shit commodity hardware failures.

No other "computers" I've ever bought become completely useless from something as stupid as a dvd rom failure.

At least i can replace a real computer's parts and software!!! Go figure.

Now I can get back to bitching about pissed I am game makers are leaving the computer market to lock us all into a shitty non extensiable devices with crappy hand cramping interfaces, because people like you are aren't smart enough too plugin a new graphics card, download a patch.

Re:Who Cares

[ZosX]

It was beyond slightly gimped. They only had 2 megs while the real dev kits had like 4 or 6. You also could not use the CD-ROM. So whatever you developed had to fit within 2 megabytes and could only be transferred via serial cable. All for like what? $1000 or something was it? The best you could hope for was that your code would be picked up by a developer. I think Medival was like the one game that came out of net yaroze. I guess it was better than the days of burning your test code on an eeprom and putting the cart in the nes......

Re:Who Cares

[RiotingPacifist]

I don't know much beyond what ive read of the xbox scene, but homebrewers are the kind of people that are going to put timer chips on motherboards, patch kernels, code simple games, exploit and generally do clever things, pirates just trick a console into thinking that it is playing a legit game. (again AFAIK) The xbox360 has pretty bulletproof, however 1 hole was found (by homebrew, to run linux on it) as a result the encryption keys for the cd drives where swiped and now pirates have produced modchips for piracy. Sometimes (from what i read here) the relationship is more symbiotic but basically all the hardwork is done by the homebrew scene. I think the wii is a special case as it was soo easy to crack and the GC already had its piracy tools, as soon as the homebrew guys got in the pirates followed.

The PS has always had an established piracey crowd, IMO its why they beat N64s, however afaik as of now, there is no piracy on the ps3, the major difference between xbox360 and the ps3 was that linux/homebrew had a place on the ps3.

Re:Who Cares

[Entropius]

I was thinking of photo editing in Picasa + Lightroom. It's not as compute-intensive as gaming, but there's an awful lot of data to push around.

Re:Who Cares

[sexconker]

No. All you have to do is show you're capable.

Nintendo has some harsh official restrictions, sure. (They even demand you have an actual office.)

But if you go to Sony, MS, or Nintendo and say "Hey, this is what I made.", and you actually have something worth showing, they will set you up to sell your wares on their internet shop.

Re:Who Cares

[Anonymous Coward]

But it doesn't look the same. All PS3 games that have versions on the Xbox 360 and/or PC look worst on the PS3, and not just by a little. The quality difference is very noticeable.

A game like Crysis is completely impossible to do on the PS3 because of the tiny amount of memory. It just can't handle all of those high res textures.

Re:Who Cares

[Kenshin]

The hypervisor isn't gone. They're just not maintaining drivers for it on the new hardware for other OSes.

Re:Who Cares

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect the fact that Blu-ray burners and blanks were (and to some extent still are) very expensive contributed to the lack of interest in modded PS3s. Even with today's prices, a blu-ray burner will run you at least $150, and you can expect to be about $7 per blank. You'd need to pirate about 5 games (going with an average price of $40/game -- keep in mind quite a few of the worthwhile games are older and have come down in price) to break even without counting the price of the modchip itself.

Re:Who Cares

[nog_lorp]

Well come on now, you can hardly call PS3 OtherOS an incubator for games when it runs unaccelerated 2d Linux games. And most graphics cards today (I see one on Google Product search for $60) have S-Video. An S-Video to RCA converter is like $10 bucks.

Re:Who Cares

[Gizzmonic]

I'd bet a fuckton of Amiga and Commodore64 users would laugh in your face right now.

Do 6 guys count as a "fuckton"?

Re:Who Cares

[prockcore]

I've never scratched one of my xbox discs.. but I have purchased a used disc that was unplayable. I just returned it.

This isn't a problem on the PS3. bluray discs are damn near indestructible.

Re:Who Cares

[Toonol]

They can competitively play just fine; they just can't competitively play with PC owners. FPS for the console, the good ones, are constructed around the gamepad, and (here's the important part) are just as challenging and just as entertaining as FPS on the pc with a keyboard/mouse. It's only a problem when the two are mixed.

I think you'd see the same problem if a FPS allowed competition between, say, 360 and Wii owners. The Wii owners would decimate them, simply because of the control scheme.

Re:Who Cares

[BitZtream]

Yep, supercomputer performance roughly the same as any modern intel processor ... wait ... what the hell is your definition of super computer performance?

If you have to tie a shitload of them together to do it, it doesn't count as a super computer by itself, sorry.

Re:Who Cares

[Anonymous Coward]

DRM means someone else has control over something you own. DRM means having to ask someone else for permission to do certain things with your own property. If you don't find that offensive in and of itself, regardless of implementation, then there is something wrong with you.

Re:Who Cares

[binarylarry]

There's a toshiba laptop with an integrated cell processor.

Re:Who Cares

[Chees0rz]

Ah yes. But the keyboard/mouse is worse for many other genres. Especially when 2 people are trying to play...

As someone who played q3 arena for like 8 yrs... I too can't stand using a gamepad for FPS.

Re:Who Cares

[Anonymous Coward]

NOPE! All my consoles are made of Nintendium!

Re:Who Cares

[Dutch Gun]

Yep, and all you'd have to give up is what consoles do best. You plug it in, put the disk in, and play.

Consoles aren't about giving you the best gaming experience. They're about giving you a nicely-packaged, so-easy-to-use-anyone-can-do-it gaming experience.

I imagine sometimes PC gamers scratch their heads and wonder why the PC gaming market share is dwarfed by consoles. After all, the PC is an open platform, it's far more powerful, has deeper and more sophisticated games, a more diverse set of input devices, some of which are clearly superior for certain genres....

Yet, none of that trumps the console's ace: plug it in, works every time.*

* Ok, ok, cue 360 jokes here.

Re:Who Cares

[Monsuco]

Why should I, or anyone else, get upset that I can't put Linux on a console?

Because it's cool.

My Xbox runs XBMC and X-DSL Linux, my Wii runs the homebrew channel.

Linux installations have been done to iPods, DVRs, 3rd party router firmware, cell phones, PDAs, the Xbox, the Xbox 360 (albiet it is very primitive), the "fat" PS2, the "fat" PS3, the Wii, the GameCube, the Nintendo DS, the PSP, all sorts of computers including very obscure hardware (IBM made a wristwatch that runs linux).

Re:Who Cares

[Toonol]

Pain free? have you ever heard of titles breaking, or that you have to pay for every add-on that PC users get free, or that you can't upgrade your hardware like a PC and constantly stay up to date?

I honestly don't mind buying a new game if I break it. That's the way it works with all my OTHER stuff.

Paying for add-ons is lame, and I don't do it. It's not deceptive, though, and takes no control away from me.

And I don't need to upgrade my hardware to stay up to date because that concept doesn't exist in the console world. A three year old 360 is no more out of date than a brand new 360. There's no games coming out that my console can't run; it's not slowly becoming obsoleted. I don't have to run and send in order to stay in place, like I do in the pc world.

I'm defending the consoles, but I like playing pc games, too. Less and less, though, because it's just a headache. People bitch about the 360's red-ring rate... I'd like to see stats on how many brand new gaming computers are running without serious problems three years later. (Not anecdotes. Stats.)

Re:Who Cares

[dangitman]

If you're interested in running Linux on a PS3, you probably already own one. If you don't, Sony has given you fair warning to get a "chubby" PS3 while they are still available.

I'll be your wingman. If I have to take a chubby, I'll suck it up!

Re:Who Cares

[JordanL]

I don't see a mod option for "-1 False".

Re:Who Cares

[DiamondMX]

Sony proves one of these wrong, Microsoft the other.

Re:Who Cares

[unapersson]

They said Metal Gear Solid 4 was going to be PS3 exclusive - guess what bucko? 360's about to get it.

Are you porting it in your spare time?

Re:Who Cares

[master5o1]

If it is cracked open, then there will be both homebrew and pirates. Why? Simply because if the homebrew enthusiasts get their code running, pirates will use it for their shit. If the pirates get their code running, well...then homebrew would be able to get theirs running by checking how the pirates can do it.

Re:Who Cares

[iainl]

Not just the GPU, but some support for external hardware, too. The PS3's internal drive is RPC-2 locked to the DVD region they ship on. Which wouldn't be a problem if it recognised an external USB DVD drive, but it doesn't - so VLC can't play imports under Linux. Which is a bit of a bind.

Re:Who Cares

[donaldm]

When reading what Sony said about removing Linux support they really are reneging on another promise which also include PS2 backwards compatibility. The so called tech speak of "Unfortunately in this case the cost of OtherOS install did not fit with the wider objective to offer a lower cost PS3" is highly debatable since the PS3 is a console and even though the components have been reduced the basic hardware infrastructure remains the same. If I can take a x86_64 or even i386 Linux Distribution DVD and install it on a PC the OS will basically work since all drivers have been provided then a Linux Distribution for the power PC should also work on the PS3 in fact I would go as far as saying that most of the work done on the distributions that will intall on a PS3 has been done by the Linux community not Sony.

Having had my rant having the ability of installing Linux would only be done by a few people and those people who have done this already have the "fat" PS3 so in some ways this ability would hardly be used so I can understand Sony removing the capability but to say this significantly costs Sony is total BS. All you need is one person on an irregular basis to update any new drivers for the new firmware and everyone benefits.

I do have a "fat" PS3 which is PS2 backwards compatible (I do use this feature) however I have never installed Linux on it preferring to put Linux on my PC instead. Is this being hypocritical well no since I have the choice and in this case my PC won but at least I have the choice however now with the slim PS3 you don't. Some people will care however the majority won't.

Re:Who Cares

[Khyber]

No need to port it - both the 360 and PS3 use the Cell SDK for program design so porting shouldn't be necessary, just a little re-write of the control and network stuff to handle the inconsistent 'standards' Microsoft claims to follow but breaks in reality.

Re:Who Cares

[Khyber]

"It just can't handle all of those high res textures"

Which is why you procedurally generate them instead of making huge texture maps that need to be stored in memory. The PS3 is perfectly capable of doing this on the fly.

Re:Who Cares

[pjfry3000]

I used to play PC games exclusively through high school and college. Afterwards, I bought a PS2 for one game: Shadow of the Colossus. I have since move completely to PS2/PS3 games. It's a much more relaxing way to play games. Pop in a disc, play a game on my couch with the TV and controller in hand. I've even moved over to playing FPSs with a gamepad and don't mind at all. The well done console games are programmed around controller. Plus all players are on an equal playing field. Part of the reason for the switch, but by no means the biggest reason is that I work at a computer 90% of my day. The last thing I need to do when I go home is spend another hour or two at a desktop. Plus, I haven't bought new memory or a graphics card in years. Desktop still runs very well for web and productivity.

Re:Who Cares

[thrash242]

Some of us take good care of our discs, so I haven't, no. Keeping them only in the device or their case works wonders.

The only scratched discs I own are those I bought used.

Re:Who Cares

[GoRK]

Since the Linux kernel only interfaces with the virtualized devices presented by the PS3 hypervisor, and since this hypervisor presents exactly the same interfaces to GameOS as it does to OtherOS (where it simply blocks many hypervisor calls) this is exactly what I'm suggesting. No shit!

If Sony is actually realizing cost savings by dropping this feature, it's certainly not happening in development, but in QA, Support, and Legal. It's still sad to see it go, and I hope they bring it back.

Re:Who Cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Never had a scratched disc, perhaps the people complaining that they need "backups" in case they scratch the discs need to take care of their valuable things better.

It's quite funny that I went to respond to your post by saying you're obviously not a parent, and there is actually a button that says parent. It should automatically post that someday you'll move out of mom and dad's place and get a family and you may not have the room to put all your valuables 6 foot off the ground in a locked container.

Re:Who Cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets say it that way, three years ago when it was introduced it was interesting, and still is if you want to get your hands wet with cell programming.
But nowadays with GPUs being in the 500GFlop dual precision range, the Cell is dead for cheap number crunching, deader than dead.
The only good thing really having come out of the Linux issue was that nobdoy bothered to hack the PS3 open.
My personal guess is in a half a years time the first modchips will be there and in a year the first software hack will be there. That is the usual timeframe.

Re:Who Cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Or instead of playing pirated games from Blu-Ray, stick a 500GB drive ($90) in the PS3 and play the games from that, that'd save money after 3 games and should be able to fit at least 10 games (probably a lot more) on it. The only thing is that it is probably harder to hack the console to play pirated games from the hard drive than from the Blu-ray drive.

Re:Who Cares

[badkarmadayaccount]

Game studios' release strategies are beside the point.
If you want better reliability, a second PC gives a better ROI.
Why can't you sell your PC game beside idiotic artificial restrictions?
Getting slower after installing a game?
Run your important stuff on a descent filesystem, use NTFS for boot only.
Better yet, get a descent OS, if possible.

And both users of PS3 Linux were sad

[Anonymous Coward]

It didn't sell them any significant number of new PS3's. That they did it for the first generation was fine, but it's not a contract they signed in blood.

Re:And both users of PS3 Linux were sad

[_merlin]

There were at least a few - I helped maintain SDLMAME for PowerPC, which, once Apple switched to Intel, seemed to be mainly used on PS3 Linux. In the back of my mind I'd always thought it would be cool to have a PS3 to run SDLMAME on the TV, but I never got around to buying one.

Cost/Benefit

[TJ_Phazerhacki]

RTFA. Sony has chosen not to maintain the Hypervisor for the new hardware. You can still run linux on the old systems, and they do not plan to disable that feature. This isn't open source hate, it's a practical business decision by a company that loses money every time they sell a console. They made the console cheaper.

Re:Cost/Benefit

[Aladrin]

And stopped people from buying it that weren't going to buy games and accessories with it.

Yes, some gamers also installed Linux, but there were -many- people who bought it just to install Linux, for various reasons. Each of those sales was an absolute loss for Sony and it doesn't make sense to encourage it.

I don't blame them one bit. Besides, I installed linux and it wasn't a very good experience on the PS3, between horrible installs and slowness and general awkwardness like having to choose what to load on reboot/etc. I ended up just putting a PC in the room instead.

Re:Cost/Benefit

[yincrash]

Comparing the cost of driver updates on a per console basis doesn't make much sense. There is a one time cost to create the drivers plus maybe the salary of one programmer to maintain the drivers. Per console, that's miniscule.

Re:Cost/Benefit

[gbarules2999]

Besides, I installed linux and it wasn't a very good experience on the PS3, between horrible installs and slowness and general awkwardness like having to choose what to load on reboot/etc. I ended up just putting a PC in the room instead.

Exactly. I don't understand this whole "lets stuff Ubuntu on a computer designed for gaming" nonsense. I mean, it has 256 MB RAM, no graphics card for Linux to take advantage of...what's the point?

Re:Cost/Benefit

[jasonhamilton]

I don't think they care.

Every unit sony sold, sony lost money on.

Every unit sold that wasn't purchased with the intent to play games on, sony lost projected income on.

Either way you look at it, sony will be glad to have rid themselves of those kinds of people.

Re:Cost/Benefit

[SuperDre]

YES, finally someone who gets it..... And with an advertising budget of 83m they can't even spend $50k on a programmer to do the job.. It's not like they even have to start from scratch as they alreayd have a 'framework'.. I just hope that Sony will update the driver because now it's known that there is no technical reason for not to update it, only financial reasons... But NOOO they'd rather spend some cash on some stupid new options for the XMB, which is also Fubar since FW3.0, I'd rather have the old XMB, which was much better.. But I guess they're using a lower resolution now internally so they have some extra mem free...

Re:Cost/Benefit

[H0p313ss]

And stopped people from buying it that weren't going to buy games and accessories with it.

Both of you.

Re:Cost/Benefit

[MonsterTrimble]

As much as I like Ubuntu, Ubuntu does not equal Linux.

Re:Cost/Benefit

[VGPowerlord]

I hate to say it, but Sony probably lost more PS3 sales by removing the PS2 compatibility than they did removing the ability to run Linux.

Re:Cost/Benefit

[Khyber]

I'll save myself from repeating and just point you out to this:

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/products/dram/Products_XDRDRAM.html

That 256 megs of 4GHz XDR eats up your puny 4GB of 1066MHz DDR2 without thinking twice, in clock speed, latency, and actual bandwidth throughput.

It uses an nVidia graphics the RSX core, which is pretty much a hyped-up Geforce 7800.

It sucked because of the hypervisor. They just removed it. Time for custom firmware to re-enable installing a third-party OS and time for direct access to the hardware.

2TFLOP supercomputer at your fingertips. The best high-end gaming PCs can barely hit 1TFLOP with all their hardware combined.

Re:Cost/Benefit

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the cost of something like this is much wider than just having a single programmer to maintain the drivers... there are some minor differences in the PS3 Slim vs. its bigger brother that would warrant slight variations in the drivers.

There's also all the QAing and certification of drivers to ensure it doesn't break anything. These costs add up quickly. Having these people on staff is an ongoing expense.

Re:Cost/Benefit

[Entropius]

Cell, in theory, if you can figure out how to use all those cores on a computer that's crippled otherwise.

Re:Cost/Benefit

[RoFLKOPTr]

That 256 megs of 4GHz XDR eats up your puny 4GB of 1066MHz DDR2 without thinking twice, in clock speed, latency, and actual bandwidth throughput.

But it doesn't beat it in capacity, and faster read/write cycles and bandwidth does not mean more capacity. RAM is for storing data, not processing it, so when you don't have adequate capacity for the data you need to store, then extra speed isn't going to help you one bit. Sure, when you're talking the difference between 2GB of XDR and 4GB of DDR2, I'll take the XDR any day... but 256MB just isn't enough to be useful for anything.

Re:Cost/Benefit

[CronoCloud]

I think I have a better experience, but I use fluxbox on YDL6.2. Besides, after running Linux on a PS2 for 6 years I know pretty well what works on low RAM systems. Though 256MB isn't all that low, that was the standard RAM with XP systems as late as 2003.

Re:Cost/Benefit

[CronoCloud]

I agree, anyone who wanted to run Linux on a PS3 probably already has one. The slim model is not aimed at Sony's hardcore fanbase (who probably wanted backwards compatibility and already have a PS3) or open source geeks, but those who don't have one already.

Sony said something similar when they released the slim PS2 without the hard drive bay: "Look, most likely anyone who wanted to play the few hard drive enabled games already has a fat PS2 because they're hardcore fans"

Re:Cost/Benefit

[AdmiralXyz]

there were -many- people who bought it just to install Linux, for various reasons.

Bullshit. Where are these people? And why would they spend $600 for no reason other than to install Linux on a shiny black box which offers no advantages over a much cheaper and much more useful general-purpose computer?

Re:Cost/Benefit

[gbarules2999]

Yes, I know, settle down. I was just using it as an example because Lifehacker wrote a story or two on putting Ubuntu specifically on the machine, and lifehacker represents that "tabloid" computer-related press in my mind.

Re:Cost/Benefit

[Khyber]

"256MB just isn't enough to be useful for anything."

Give me a Win98 machine with 256MB of XDR. Bam, I've got web, email, games up to things like Q3 and derivatives (assuming proper video card,) can do video, and hell I can run fruity Loops and cool Edit pro at the same time so I can compose and master musical scores. Fuck, I only need maybe 2K of RAM to have an operating calculator, and with a calculator alone of today's power I could design a fucking nuke, which they did back then on a machine bigger than any house you've ever been in that used vacuum tubes and required two air conditioners for every ten linear feet of computer.

You're probably too young to know this but the very same shit you're doing today was done many years ago on less capable hardware with good programmers sitting in the chair. Most programmers today ARE NOT WORTH SHIT AND THAT IS WHY 256MB OF RAM IS NOT ENOUGH.

Re:Cost/Benefit

[Anonymous Coward]

/me gets off your lawn...

Calm down old man, you may be correct, but if you get too worked up, you'll have a stroke.

Oh, do houses that have been converted into museums count? I've been in some pretty large mansion-turned-museums.

Re:Cost/Benefit

[mister_playboy]

Screw Win98... Win2000 will run fantastically on 256MB, and it offers 95% of what Vista can by my reckoning.

Re:Cost/Benefit

[FreonTrip]

I know, and back in your day you hardly ever got wood watching TV, and the skies were bluer, and children's smiles were sweeter and more endearing, and nostalgia always reigns supreme.

Re:Cost/Benefit

[RoFLKOPTr]

Bam, I've got web,

Using a version of Internet Explorer that is how old, and knows how little about modern web technologies?

email,

And how many features does your Outlook have? I know you can't use webmail because you're using a version of IE that can't do shit.

games up to things like Q3 and derivatives (assuming proper video card,)

The capabilities of Quake 3 are nowhere near those of modern games.

can do video

Ah, but can you do 1080p video?

and hell I can run fruity Loops and cool Edit pro at the same time so I can compose and master musical scores.

I'll give you that one.

Fuck, I only need maybe 2K of RAM to have an operating calculator, and with a calculator alone of today's power I could design a fucking nuke, which they did back then on a machine bigger than any house you've ever been in that used vacuum tubes and required two air conditioners for every ten linear feet of computer.

Calculators do simple math. I bet your calculator can't brute force an MD5 hash at 600 million attempts per second.

You're probably too young to know this but the very same shit you're doing today was done many years ago on less capable hardware with good programmers sitting in the chair. Most programmers today ARE NOT WORTH SHIT AND THAT IS WHY 256MB OF RAM IS NOT ENOUGH.

The very same shit in a much more simple incarnation.. Sorry old man, but computers from 10 years ago just aren't capable of things that today's computers are.

Re:Cost/Benefit

[Khyber]

"Using a version of Internet Explorer that is how old, and knows how little about modern web technologies?"

Actually I'd just use an older version of firefox with a few plugins. Oldversion.com - because newer isn't ALWAYS better.

"And how many features does your Outlook have? I know you can't use webmail because you're using a version of IE that can't do shit."

Gmail has a regular HTML display option for email - try again.

"The capabilities of Quake 3 are nowhere near those of modern games."

The Q3 engine is open-sourced and has been extensively and heavily modified. The engine itself is more efficient and actually handles more detail. In fact, iD software is the premier engine developer, and the Q3 engine is so customizable that with just some tweaking you can get much better looking graphics. Actually, the engine is so efficient that extremely high polygon count models would still render pretty easily even on older Geforce 6 hardware.

"Ah, but can you do 1080p video?"

Software 1080p only requires a 2GHz P4 and 256MB of RAM (That's my old system spec from early 2000, was watching 1080p fansubs) Get a video card that handles it natively on the board and you can get away with only a 1GHz processor.

"Calculators do simple math. I bet your calculator can't brute force an MD5 hash at 600 million attempts per second."

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=767419 - who needs speed? It can be done, it will be done. yea it'll take years on the TI-83's 8MHz cpu but it could still get it done.

"Sorry old man, but computers from 10 years ago just aren't capable of things that today's computers are."

Only games. Everything else can and has been done on older computers, pretty well might I add, maybe not REALTIME but it still gets done. All those super-awesome CGI scenes you saw in movies back in the late 90s? Yea, quite a few of those were done on machines that don't break the 300MHz barrier, and were lucky to even have 256MB of RAM in both video and system memory combined. Music tracks? Yep, been done a loooong time on old computers. 3D modeling/CAD? Yup, been done and is still done on old computers (go take a tour of the Carvin guitar factory, they're still using machines from the early 80's running some variant of UNIX.) Text processing? Been doing that since before the days of monochrome screens. Spreadsheets, graphs, plotting? Yep, those too.

Sorry, but computers even back then were capable of doing pretty much anything you wanted with them. Whether or not you got results back in realtime is an entirely different matter.

Re:Cost/Benefit

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is, if all you do is buy the PS3 for its ability to run linux, and not to play games on it, THEY LOST MONEY WITH YOU. They take a hit on every PS3 sold, and intend to make it back from the sale of games etc. If you JUST bought the hardware and don't buy games for it, they're taking a loss on that console sale.

Tell me how this is a bad move on their part if this is truley a common occurance.

What?

[MrMista_B]

Why on /earth/ would Sony care about Linux on PS3's?

And honestly, for the great majority of users, why on earth would you bother putting Linux on a PS3 (aside from 'because I can' and scientific stuff, for which there are better solutions and more interesting challenges), except to pirate games?

I'm having a really hard time finding out why I'm supposed to be as outraged as the tone of this suggests I should be.

Re:What?

[RazorSharp]

I agree. I think they were hoping that PS3 Linux would really take off with people like the Slashdot community. Since that never happened, why would they continue support?

Re:What?

[Monkeedude1212]

As mentioned in other comments, PS3's architecture was great. It offered really strong computing at a really low cost. Lots of people used multiple PS3's running Linux to do a wide variety of tasks, from server farms to rendering to whatever.

Now, You are right, for a great majority of the users, they DON'T put linux on their PS3. So when they decided to lower the price, they had to drop a feature. Guess which one got dropped? Right, support for other OS's.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why?
I'll tell you why.

The people who broke the original Xbox security were linux users. They didnt give a flying frack about pirating games but wanted to run linux on the console...
What Sony has done now is make it a challenge... and those users tend to be quite good at breaking stuff... The breaking of such things would also open up easy piracy.

Nasty can of worms to open up in my opinion... We'll see.

Re:What?

[Khyber]

Sony didn't make it a challenge. I thought that so at first, but guess what? It was the hypervisor restricting all the access. Hypervisor's gone, all that's left is to hack the firmware to allow installing another OS. If anything, Sony's likely made it easier to get Linux running.

Re:What?

[thethibs]

why on earth would you bother putting Linux on a PS3

Because it gives me a Cell computer with the trimmings for a quarter of the cost of the components to build one myself.

Also saddened by the fact that ...

[neonprimetime]

... PS3 Slim won't run PS2 discs

Re:Also saddened by the fact that ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Only the first generation of ps3 would play ps2 games. They removed that option long before the slim came out.

Re:Also saddened by the fact that ...

[hattig]

Yeah, well that wasn't a capability of many big PS3s either, the 40GB in Europe never had that capability. Sad, yes, but once the PS3 game library was big enough an understandable cost optimisation.

Maybe Sony will one day sort out its PS2 software emulation (not the half and half that they had in 2nd generation PS3s in some markets) so that we can load our existing games (although I suspect they would rather we rebought them in the PS Store).

Re:Also saddened by the fact that ...

[93 Escort Wagon]

... PS3 Slim won't run PS2 discs

I think this is a more practical thing to be concerned about, at least for some of us. I thought about buying a PS3, even though it's unlikely I'd buy many games at first, because looking forward it seemed to make sense. But heck, my daughter still plays a number of PS2 games on a regular basis - so nope, we're not getting a PS3 for a while.

I don't understand why console makers can't grasp that we don't want to keep connecting more and more devices concurrently to our televisions, or having said devices taking up more and more room under/around them...

Re:Also saddened by the fact that ...

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

the "fat" PS3 doesn't already.

the last model to have PS2 compatibility was the 80GB model, and this one did this with a combination of hardware AND software, while the previous 60 GB had full hardware compatibility.

the 40GB model can't play PS2 disks nor does any other model after the 80 GB one.

Re:Also saddened by the fact that ...

[VGPowerlord]

Define first generation.

iirc, the PS3 Slim is the fourth generation of PS3 console.

First Gen: 20GB and 60GB models. PS2 CPU included. PS2 compatible graphics card. These models were never sold in Europe.
Second Gen: 60GB (EU only) and 80GB models. PS2 compatible graphics card. PS2 CPU software emulated.
Third Gen: 40GB and 80GB models. No PS2 compatibility.
Fourth Gen: 120GB Slim model. No PS2 compatibility.

Note that the second and third generation PS3s had some overlap in terms of sales time, at least in North America. The 40GB third generation model came out shortly after the second generation 80GB model.

Re:Also saddened by the fact that ...

[VGPowerlord]

Note that there is a newer "fat" PS3 80GB model that doesn't have PS2 compatibility either. I don't know how to tell which 80GB model is which, but I'm sure there's something online to tell which is which.

Re:Also saddened by the fact that ...

[sc7]

The simple way to tell is by the USB ports, Card Readers, and Chrome Trim.

The 40 GB model was the first one to not have BC, and it was the first one to also receive an RSX reduction to 65nm, along with the cosmetic stripping.

Non-BC 40/80/160 US models can be identified by the following:
-2 USB ports instead of 4
-A matte silver trim near the disc drive and on the bottom, as opposed to shiny chrome
-No card readers.

Also, the non-BC models have less ventilation under the right hand side overhang (where it looks like the UFO landed on the square), most likely due to them running cooler with the new RSX.

Re:Also saddened by the fact that ...

[swv3752]

Wrong. Second Generation would also run PS2 games. It just did some software emulation, rather then the first gen's full PS2 hardware.

Re:Also saddened by the fact that ...

[mister_playboy]

The 160GB should be added to that list as a third gen.

They're Too Big to Write Off Entirely

[eldavojohn]

... it has removed the final reason for the open source world to care about Sony.

I thought ImageWorks (of Sony Pictures) had recently opensourced OSL, Scala Migrations, Field3D, PyString and Maya Reticle or at least made them community endeavors. I can't seem to find the source code for browsing on OSL and some of the other projects are pretty tiny but if that's true it's a good sign on ImageWorks' part.

I'm certain they by and large use GPL LGPL in their products like their TVs and SOE using PostgreSQL over Oracle.

Writing off the PS3? Probably. They probably realized Linux support buys them little over the Wii and XBox360 despite what I and everyone else thinks. But the rest of Sony might have hope.

Re:They're Too Big to Write Off Entirely

[tepples]

They probably realized Linux support buys them little over the Wii and XBox360 despite what I and everyone else thinks.

Xbox 360 has Creators Club and Xbox Live Indie Games, a business model that Apple copied for the iPhone SDK and App Store. What does Sony have to match it?

Re:They're Too Big to Write Off Entirely

[Anonymous Coward]

They probably realized Linux support buys them little over the Wii and XBox360 despite what I and everyone else thinks.

Xbox 360 has Creators Club and Xbox Live Indie Games, a business model that Apple copied for the iPhone SDK and App Store. What does Sony have to match it?

Alright, I give up, what does that have to do with this topic? Are you trying to imply that XNA is open source or what? Because it's not.

Are we supposed to get into a pissing match about features? Because I really don't care what the Wii, PS3 or XBox360 have. I know PS3's got Blu-Ray and XBox360 has Xbox Live and the Wii is just fun in a group setting. Who cares, this is about open source and Sony. No one else is supporting Linux on any of the three big consoles and bringing up XNA or Creators Club or Xbox Live Indie Games is all great but I really don't see what it has to do with this article.

Re:They're Too Big to Write Off Entirely

[hansamurai]

Creator's Club is simply nothing like the OtherOS support Sony had. One is for developing XNA framework games and selling them on Xbox Live, the other is for turning your PS3 into a slightly gimped Linux box (gimped as in no direct access to GPU). They're targeted at completely different people and don't even serve remotely the same purpose.

Re:They're Too Big to Write Off Entirely

[GweeDo]

Mini's for the PSP. If that takes of I would expect to see it find its way onto the PS3.

Re:They're Too Big to Write Off Entirely

[tepples]

Who cares, this is about open source and Sony. No one else is supporting Linux on any of the three big consoles

I was talking about code written by students and hobbyists in general, not necessarily free software. On the Xbox 360, the environment for this is XNA; on the fat PS3, it's Linux.

Re:They're Too Big to Write Off Entirely

[tepples]

Mini's for the PSP.

I looked it up on Google, and based on what I read on Kotaku, it isn't much different from WiiWare or DSiWare. I didn't see anything about how developers can sign up, unlike XNA where anyone with a 360 and a recent Windows PC with non-Intel graphics can get started.

Re:They're Too Big to Write Off Entirely

[TheKidWho]

You imply linux has proper support for graphics card as is to begin with!

Re:They're Too Big to Write Off Entirely

[CronoCloud]

He wants an official dev kit, but they won't give him one since he's an amateur without an office and whatnot. That's his major focus, that and same screen multiplayer on SDTV's.

Re:They're Too Big to Write Off Entirely

[dangitman]

Xbox 360 has Creators Club and Xbox Live Indie Games, a business model that Apple copied for the iPhone SDK and App Store.

Yes, of course, Apple copied the idea of selling software in an online store from the Xbox. It's not a totally obvious idea that has been around since before the Xbox or anything.... No, Microsoft invented that one entirely by itself... And of course, Apple never had an online digital store before the App store, nosirree.

Re:They're Too Big to Write Off Entirely

[Madsy]

Creator's Club is simply nothing like the OtherOS support Sony had. One is for developing XNA framework games and selling them on Xbox Live, the other is for turning your PS3 into a slightly gimped Linux box (gimped as in no direct access to GPU). They're targeted at completely different people and don't even serve remotely the same purpose.

I second this. Not to mention that the Creators Club subscription costs money, and is needed in order to debug and upload applications to the XBox360. While installing Linux on the PS3 is completely free with no strings attached.

Stupid Article.

[Reason58]

I'm in the "open source world".

Should I stop caring about Burger King because I can't run Linux on a Whopper?

Re:Stupid Article.

[Astroturtle]

YES, DAMN IT. YES!

Re:Stupid Article.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure that a WOPR would run Linux just fine!

Re:Stupid Article.

[skorch]

Sure, as a consumer you may have an interest in whatever suits you, but that interest is not in relation to your being a member of the "open source world". Any interaction you have with Whoppers and Whopper-related products are completely independent of your status as a member of the "open source world".

Of course, the fact that ingredients and recipes for hamburgers are widely available, and I can make my own burgers at home with tools available to the public might make Hamburgers somewhat open-source. I just can't go selling it while calling it a Whopper.

I'm sorry, what were we talking about again?

Re:Stupid Article.

[Monkeedude1212]

... Are you saying you got a Whopper to run Linux before?

Link me to sauce.

I mean source.

Re:Stupid Article.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. You can't even store your files in the fries. WTF ARE YOU GOING TO BURGER KING FOR?

Re:Stupid Article.

[jittles]

Should I stop caring about Burger King because I can't run Linux on a Whopper?

Don't be daft man, the Whopper has never supported Linux.

Re:Stupid Article.

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you like a nice game of chess?

Re:Stupid Article.

[Flea of Pain]

No, but it goes great with Wine.

Re:Stupid Article.

[LS1 Brains]

Sorry, no. In this instance, you simply cannot have it your way.

Re:Stupid Article.

[H0p313ss]

I'm in the "open source world". Should I stop caring about Burger King because I can't run Linux on a Whopper?

I tried making my own burgers from scratch and I still can't get the damn kernel to boot.

Re:Stupid Article.

[jpmorgan]

Should I stop caring about Burger King because I can't run Linux on a Whopper?

Of course you can't. That's what NetBSD is for!

Re:Stupid Article.

[fzammett]

What, you never heard of Whoppix*?? It's a great distro! I like the fact that I can take off the pickels, lettuce, tomatoes and even the special sauce if I want... trying doing THAT with Windows!!

* Need reference

Re:Stupid Article.

[noidentity]

Should I stop caring about Burger King because I can't run Linux on a Whopper?

More importantly, imagine a Beowulf cluster of Whoppers. Mmmmmm, Beowulf cluster of Whoppers...

Re:Stupid Article.

[Joe Snipe]

Haha, you love the Burger King!

Re:Stupid Article.

[Anonymous Coward]

No you would only go to Wendy's and constantly annoy everyone else around you about going.
Because you realize that only with a square burger will you be able to construct the first meat computer.

Units to sell at a loss

[drunken_boxer777]

Are you surprised given that Sony has acknowledged it will sell the PS3 slim at a loss?

So yes, they've changed their strategy to boost sales of the new PS3 by selling at a loss and intending to make up the money on game sales. How many people will buy several of these and never play games on them? Probably not too many, but where do you draw the line?

Stop acting like a kid who can't get what he wants.

Re:Units to sell at a loss

[gbjbaanb]

How many people will buy several of these and never play games on them?

Probably more than you think, go to AV forums and you'll see a lot of people using the PS3 mainly to watch Blu-ray discs, especially now you can get the BBC iPlayer on it.

Re:Units to sell at a loss

[VGPowerlord]

Unfortunately, Microsoft immediately tried to counter Sony's strategy by dropping the price of the Xbox 360 as well.

Re:Units to sell at a loss

[CronoCloud]

Until, what was it, sometime in 2008? The PS3 was the best bang for the buck as a Blu-Ray player. Bonusview, BD-Live, lots of storage for BD-Live content (so you can play lots of discs without having to delete stuff all the time like you might on a standalone with a single 1GB), and a powerful 3.2GHz CPU that makes all the lovely menu's and whatnot, snappy. And then there's all the other things it does. "It only does everything!" (I have a CECHE01 so it DOES do everything including SACD, Linux and PS2 games)

And now, since it's $299, it's the probably best bang for the buck again.

Hmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see here. On one hand, you have millions upon millions of gamers that don't give a flying fuck about Open Source Software / Free Software. On the other hand, probably less than .1% of your install base cares about running Linux on their PS3. Call me crazy, but I think Sony will be able to survive.

Honestly, why would Linux be a major factor in buying a PS3? You buy a PS3 for A) games and B) blu-ray. Being able to run Linux might be a nice little extra, but if it is a deciding factor for you then I think your beard might be a little too tight.

Re:Hmmm.

[CronoCloud]

Actually, it was a deciding factor for me, a minor one to be sure. I actually cared more about the PS2 and PS1 compatibility. But I was one of those with a PS2 Linux kit and that things hard drive was going to fail eventually. As you said, running Linux on it is a nice extra that lets me read my e-mail, post to slashdot, play nethack, edit my pictures, and chat on IM and IRC.

No traditional Linux neckbeard for me though, I actually don't want my facial hair, but that...is another story. :-)

A non-loss to super computing

[whatajoke]

Given that today's high end graphics cards(e.g. 4870X2) offer far more TFLOPs than the PS3, I fail to see how linux not running on PS3 is a loss for the supercomputing fraternity. Machine for machine, Folding@home gets more computation out of PCs equipped with graphics cards rather than the PS3s. It is just that there are a lot more PS3s involved in Folding@Home than PCs fitted with nice graphics cards, which totals up the PS3 FLOPs beyond the gamer PCs.

Re:A non-loss to super computing

[Schnoogs]

Now this should be modded insightful...well said

Re:A non-loss to super computing

[CronoCloud]

Yes, but the GPU client is the ONLY client that beats the PS3, and it does require a nice GPU that might cost more than the PS3. The PS3 client runs on any ol PS3 and there are a lot more PS3's out there than PC's that can make use of the GPU client. Also, folding@home is installed by default on PS3's. So in bang for the buck the PS3 is still king.

Re:A non-loss to super computing

[CronoCloud]

I forgot to mention that the GPU client is limited in the types of work units that it can do, the PS3 client is more versatile.

duh

[Sir_Sri]

The problem is that PS3's are cheaper sources of Cell processors than anything IBM is selling. If you want to set up (at a university say) a research cluster of 4 or 8 Cell based computers for astrophysics, datamining, or the like, it was cheaper to buy PS3's than even consider the IBM bought Cell based servers. But then you weren't buying games, and Sony wasn't getting financial credit for subsidizing academic research (if they donated the equipment it would be a tax write off likely but if you buy it they get nothing, and since they're selling at a loss they only want you to buy if you'll buy games too).

Also, as amusingly geeky as this was, how many of their gaming customers actually bothered? This was never an actual selling feature of the system, they were trying to circumvent EU import tariffs on game consoles that aren't on computers. The EU didn't buy it with the PS2, I doubt they bought it with the PS3.

Re:duh

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're looking for fast vector processors, just use a GPU. Same restrictions on main memory access, but shader units have access to even more memory than the Cell's itty bitty 256K per-SPE. Cell is an expensive dud.

Re:duh

[TheDarkMaster]

For the point of technical complications versus price versus computational power, one actual GPU is a lot better than a Cell.

Re:duh

[Sir_Sri]

No contest. I wasn't suggesting using a Cell cluster is a particularly good idea, but that's the point of academia, try things out, see what happens, see what you can learn.

While I'm more a GPU computing guy, some people at the last place I worked were tinkering with a small PS3 cluster. Their biggest problem was overall system memory rather than 256k cache per SPE. Not like nvidia's 16k/stream processor (8 processors to a block) in a great deal better. The whole challenge is really changing how you think about working with your data and if you aren't working in a commercial production environment it doesn't make a huge difference since by the time you're ready to use it, odds are what you learned on is antiquated. There's certainly money to be made as a PS3 developer, so learning to do neat stuff with the PS3 is useful, as is learning to do neat stuff with a GPU. The PS3 has the 'virtue' of sticking around for a while, unlike a GPU which is lucky to have a shelf life of 18 months before some major hardware revision happens.

Re:duh

[CronoCloud]

How many times must I keep saying this:

It was Yabasic on the PS2 that was an attempt to circumvent the tariff, not LInux. The tariff was eliminated before Linux on the PS2 was ever released in Europe. So Linux on the PS3 has nothing to do with that.

Re:duh

[Anonymous Coward]

The PS3 is not a good candidate for for astrophysics or datamining. The time wasted programming for it and its lack of power compared to general purpose CPU's of today makes purchasing PS3's for such a task idiotic to say the least.

TV?

[tepples]

Of course there are a million machines you can install Linux on

But how many these "million machines" are designed to connect to a standard-definition television? I looked at Best Buy a couple weeks ago and saw a bunch of PCs with VGA and possibly DVI or HDMI outputs but no S-Video. Or by "million machines", are you referring to any original PS3 units that might show up on the second-hand market?

Re:TV?

[CronoCloud]

Standard def is the past, HD is the future Yes, we all know you babysit at a house with standard def that doesn't have multiple computers for multiplayer and you're having trouble getting multiple USB controllers identified or something.

It's simple, computer with HDMI, console with HDMI, HDTV with HDMI. Go to the TV section of your local foo-mart. You'll see lots of HD sets and perhaps a small shelf off to the side with a few SD ones.

Re:TV?

[tepples]

Standard def is the past, HD is the future

And the present (that is, what is in the audience's living room) is a mix of the two.

Go to the TV section of your local foo-mart. You'll see lots of HD sets and perhaps a small shelf off to the side with a few SD ones.

True, Walmart* sells plenty of HDTVs and about two SDTVs. I myself have a Vizio. But a lot of people don't have the money for food and rent and utilities and a new TV, so when their existing TV breaks, they head to a pawn shop and pick up a used SDTV that someone who has upgraded to HDTV has sold.

Re:TV?

[Toonol]

And now is... pretty much SD.

ps3cluster.umassd.edu That's Why

[eldavojohn]

Why on /earth/ would Sony care about Linux on PS3's?

And honestly, for the great majority of users, why on earth would you bother putting Linux on a PS3 (aside from 'because I can' and scientific stuff ...

Well, via a slashdot article I submitted, there's a site that shows you how to make your own supercomputer with a cluster of PS3s that was about $4,000 at the time and probably less now. I think they were using Fedora 8 because of the Cell SDK support at the time. While you might call this "scientific stuff," some people might view it as a really cheap alternative for universities and hobbyists. Just a thought to consider.

I call BS

[overlordofmu]

I love my PS3.

I love Linux.

Sony is the only console maker that DID support Linux.

They dropped the support because it was an rarely utilized feature and it was cheaper not to support it on the new model.

I run Linux on all my PCs (2 laptops and 4 desktops) but never installed it on my PS3 (despite having partitioned my upgraded hard drive with room for it). I never felt the need to do so. I run a media server on two of the Linux boxes and I don't need the PS3 to be a 7th general purpose computer when that is not it's intended function as one and not designed for that purpose.

This fanboy of Linux (and fanboy of Sony as well) doesn't care about the dropped support. I thank Sony for all the support up to this point and wish this platform continued success.

Re:I call BS

[BitZtream]

Dude, you don't belong here. Rational thoughts aren't allowed on slashdot.

Moody

[whisper_jeff]

After reading that summary and the completely transparent hatred for Sony in it I and forced to say that, yes, Glyn is Moody. ;)

Here's an anecdote

[JoeSixpack00]

A few years back, a friend of mine needed me to format his Vaio desktop. He lost his restore disk, and he wasn't overly fond of XP anyways because of the speed difference. Everything installed smoothly, but I couldn't get a few key things working (i.e. sound). Why? Because not only did Sony not support Windows 2000, they refused to release any specs whatsoever on it's hardware. The hardware was mostly from major manufacturers, but it came directly from them to Sony, with no specs available whatsoever, thus no third party drivers (ones that worked anyways). This may not sound like that big of a deal in 2009, but at the time, no other major vendor had this problem - which wouldn't even have been a problem at all had they simply "unblocked" Windows 2000 support. After a few days of searching high and low, I just gave up and bought a copy of Windows XP off of eBay.

So basically, the most proprietary hardware vendor out decides against allowing you to run an OS that they never officially supported anyways? Seriously, is this that big of a shock?

Re:Here's an anecdote

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to be apologetic here. But I doubt any hardware vendor would have supported that. Basically asking them to spend 3-4 (testing and whql) grand on one customer. They may even have an agreement with MS not to make more drivers for that OS. Also 2k went EOL about 5 years ago... Sure *OTHERS* could have used it but they had only 1 request. Does it suck? Yes. Would I be pissed in that situation? Yes and have been. Sony probably do not even have all of the specs. They probably do not even really care other than does it nuke their battery life. They glued it together the chip guys provided the right drivers and they passed the WHQL. Good enough ship it...

Re:Here's an anecdote

[enigma32]

1) "The most proprietary hardware vendor"? Are you serious? Have you ever heard of Apple Corporation?

2) IIRC XP came out a year and a half or so after 2k.

If Windows couldn't autodetect the hardware and make it work, wouldn't that be a Microsoft problem rather than Sony?

If I tried to install Linux on my Sony laptop (which I have) and had driver problems (which I did) I would blame Linux, not Sony. (And my driver problems were all fixed with a minor amount of effort.) There is a sensible argument that manufacturers should help the OSS world by providing specs to make open software support more hardware, but at the same time, that would not be a Sony issue, that would be a problem with the manufacturers of the individual components.

3) Slightly more on topic; Who cares? Sony made what appears to be a sound business decision affecting a very small number of people, relatively speaking. I'm a huge advocate that people should be able to run whatever software on whatever hardware they like, but that doesn't mean that the hardware manufacturer should lose money to continue to support free software for those of us who prefer to use it. It sounds like linux on PS3 was terrible anyway. (though to be fair, I've never tried it)

Re:Here's an anecdote

[VGPowerlord]

So... did Sony's site have any "updated drivers" for XP? In my experience, drivers tend to be updated and new versions put on the manufacturer's website.

2000 and XP have a lot in common, including almost the entire driver model. Which is why almost every XP driver also works on Windows 2000.

Incidentally, the same thing is true for Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Re:Here's an anecdote

[CronoCloud]

Sony did officially support Linux. They had a website for the PS3, that told you how to go about doing it and how it's a supported feature for the PS3. They sold a kit for the PS2 that let you install Linux on it and still maintain the PS2 Linux website and message board (though the board is going down in October after over 7 years of operation)

I wouldn't be surprised to find out that there still are PS2's running Linux in tucked away in SCEA/SCEE offices.

Re:Here's an anecdote

[JoeSixpack00]

Even though almost every XP driver worked for 2000, the installer for said drivers blocked the installation with the message "Your operating system is not supported". Hence my irritation.

Re:Here's an anecdote

[JoeSixpack00]

No genius, it's not a sound business decision. 1) It affected more than a few people, as a lot of people were still partial to Windows 2000 at the time. 2) It wasn't a business decision at all really, because as the guy below you stated, almost all Windows XP drivers worked on Windows 2000. They just deliberately blocked them from running on Windows 2000. The drivers already worked, but were blocked because you weren't running the OS THEY wanted you to run.

It didn't bring people to the platform

[mo]

I used to work for Sony developing PS2 games. The number of people I met that cut their teeth writing code on the linux kit before getting into the business was exactly 0. I might have been the only person I knew who even had a modchipped PS2, everybody else just didn't care since they had the PS2Tool on their desk to do development. Sony is probably discontinuing offering Linux because it didn't spark the development push that they had hoped for. Still, I would think this would limit the number of supercomputer clusters that use PS3's. You'd think the marketing benefits of being a platform in the top 100 supercomputers would be valuable, but perhaps Sony is still willing to work with academic institutions to make this possible still.

Re:It didn't bring people to the platform

[TheVidiot]

You could not develop for the PS3 by using on-board Linux. There's a Cell SDK available, but that's about it.

Re:It didn't bring people to the platform

[tepples]

The number of people I met that cut their teeth writing code on the linux kit before getting into the business was exactly 0.

On what platforms did they cut their teeth?

Re:It didn't bring people to the platform

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably the one that ~90% of the world uses, as opposed to the one that 1% uses would be my guess. That or their Commodore 64's.

Re:It didn't bring people to the platform

[tepples]

Probably the one that ~90% of the world uses

If you mean PCs running Windows, then on which platforms did most developers cut their multiple-players-on-one-screen teeth? Or did most developers cut their teeth exclusively on game genres that fit well with a separate screen per player (e.g. FPS, RTS) as opposed to genres that put all players on one screen (e.g. fighting)?

Re:It didn't bring people to the platform

[masmullin]

It didn't spark the development push because Sony crippled the ability for Linux to use all of the hardware.

If they wanted to spark development, they should have let the OtherOS have free reign.

Re:It didn't bring people to the platform

[mo]

Let me preface this answer by revealing that I no longer work in the video game industry, as I did not enjoy it enough to stay. A lot of people cut their teeth on writing Windows stuff for fun, maybe working on mods, but a fair amount of developers worked their way up from QA. At least where I worked, it seemed like there were way too many people wanting to get into the video games industry, and once they did get in, they worked their asses off. People would learn to code due to their love of games, not because they liked coding. There seemed to be a lot of very bright high-school guys who, instead of doing the whole computer-science thing at a university, would work QA, and then progress up to be a developer. These people were highly respected because of their commitment.

There was another group of people who formed the more senior developers who got started in academia. People who worked on the engines ususally had PHD's in computer science with an emphasis on graphics. I would think graduate work on game theory or AI would put you in this group.

Being an old-school linux hacker who cut his teeth by contributing to OSS projects, I felt a bit out of place. Most of the guys in the industry don't leave because the idea of working on something other than video games is distasteful. Me, I find lots of engineering problems satisfying.

Re:It didn't bring people to the platform

[jamesbulman]

Most game developers I've worked with cut their programming teeth on PCs as either bedroom programmers or at school/uni.

Everything I know about 360 and PS2/3 programming I learned on the job with 360 and PS2/3 dev kits.

Re:It didn't bring people to the platform

[tepples]

Most game developers I've worked with cut their programming teeth on PCs as either bedroom programmers or at school/uni.

I too started out on PCs. But what did your coworkers do while saving money for the move to a city with a major dev house?

Everything I know about 360 and PS2/3 programming I learned on the job with 360 and PS2/3 dev kits.

Then the problem becomes getting one of the dev kits in the first place, which is difficult unless you've already lived in a city with a major dev house.

Re:It didn't bring people to the platform

[rikkitikki]

Hi, nice to meet you. Now increment the number of people you know who cut their teeth writing code on the linux kit before getting into the games business by 1. The Linux kit helped me get to know the GS and VU0, VU1, which came in handy a few months / year later when I interviewed for a position at Playstation (and then got that position). I work elsewhere now, but that PS2 Linux kit was definately valuable to me.

Re:It didn't bring people to the platform

[BitZtream]

What marketing benefits? Seriously, the only people that care are geeks. That handful of geeks isn't writing Linux code to sell on the PS3, they're just sitting around porting other free apps that no one cares about running on a gaming console. So its cool and all to be in the top 100, but not to anyone who would actually use it because of that, no one would, there are better, cheaper ways to go about accomplishing the same thing.

Just because it can be done, doesn't mean it was a good idea.

Re:It didn't bring people to the platform

[Anonymous Coward]

OSS experience means next to nothing in the games industry (puts you just a step above a fresh graduate who does not know wtf is source control) this is why you don't see many OSS contributors in there. But neither does QA experience unless by "developers" you mean designers, producers or artists. In my 12 years in the industry I have yet to see a programmer who came from QA. I've seen few guys without a degree coming from demo scene or embedded systems but never from QA.

Re:It didn't bring people to the platform

[Dutch Gun]

I can't speak for others, but...

I learned how to program on an Apple II. My first "serious" games and projects were in DOS, and later Windows / DirectX. My first professional game programming job was a Windows/PC title, and after a few years, I was hired on as a PS2 game programmer.

Honestly, most employers (in my experience at least) don't care all that much about what sort of platform experience an entry-level programmer has. They'll be working on high-level game code that's far away from any sort of platform-specific idiosyncrasies.

Re:It didn't bring people to the platform

[Dutch Gun]

Then the problem becomes getting one of the dev kits in the first place, which is difficult unless you've already lived in a city with a major dev house.

If your employer is making console games, you'll have a dev kit. If you're making PC games, you won't need it.

Industry experience seems to be far more valuable than platform-specific knowledge (except in the case of very specific domain knowledge, like a PS3 graphics programmer). Most programmers, however, are working on game code, not engine code. Game code tends to look pretty much the same no matter which platform you're working on. New programmers in particular will probably be *nowhere* near the low-level engine code.

So, once you've shipped a title or two (even if it's a PC game), your chances of getting hired by a company making console games go up dramatically. Once you've got your foot in the door, it's easier to take on more specific projects and start developing domain-specific specialties. In my case, after working on PC games for 4 or 5 years, I ended up working on PS2 titles. After that, I went back to a PC company.

Essentially, I think you just need to get your foot in the door. Once you're in, it's easier to move laterally to the platform of your choice. Probably good advice for just about any industry, I suppose.

Re:It didn't bring people to the platform

[tepples]

Game code tends to look pretty much the same no matter which platform you're working on.

Until you get into the case of one language per platform: web games use JavaScript, SWF games use ActionScript, phone games and applet games use Java, iPhone games use Objective-C, Xbox 360 games from smaller companies use C#, etc.

So, once you've shipped a title or two (even if it's a PC game), your chances of getting hired by a company making console games go up dramatically.

Does releasing free software on my web site and having an active forum about it count as "shipped", or must it be proprietary and commercial? In the latter case, how can a fan of a genre stereotypically associated with consoles "ship" a console-style title for the PC? I'd like to get into the video game industry within the next few years, and I want to know what I can do to prepare while I still have a job in a different industry.

Re:It didn't bring people to the platform

[Dutch Gun]

Until you get into the case of one language per platform: web games use JavaScript, SWF games use ActionScript, phone games and applet games use Java, iPhone games use Objective-C, Xbox 360 games from smaller companies use C#, etc.

In the commercial sector, with console and PC titles, C++ still dominates the industry. C# is emerging as a contender, but it's still niche, and largely used for ancillary work (like tool development). If you want to work on web apps or iPhone games, then there's nothing that's stopping you from developing that sort of specialty, but that's still what I consider outside the "mainstream" of the gaming industry. I have little experience in those fields.

Does releasing free software on my web site and having an active forum about it count as "shipped", or must it be proprietary and commercial? In the latter case, how can a fan of a genre stereotypically associated with consoles "ship" a console-style title for the PC? I'd like to get into the video game industry within the next few years, and I want to know what I can do to prepare while I still have a job in a different industry.

Well, everything "counts" when trying to get a job, but shipped commercial titles probably beat homebrew projects. That being said, having a small, polished game to show off definitely trumps non-related software or no code to show at all. FOSS is fine, the result is what matters . I think what I'm getting at is having a finished project shows you have the skill and fortitude to not only start a game, but finish it as well. Of course, keep in mind this is just my observation - every company will have a different set of standards they'll be looking for.

Honestly, if you're interested in multi-player brawling games, for example, then just code up a simple demo on the PC. I don't think too many companies would discount the demo just because it's not running on a PS3, Xbox 360, or a Wii. Think about it this way - said company would undoubtedly already have a game engine of some sort. As such, as a new hire, you'd be working on high-level code, and probably not doing anything remotely platform-specific.

My advice would be, however, not to set your sights too narrowly for your first job in the industry. I'd be willing to take whatever you could get initially, as that will get you valuable experience. My first job was working on bargain-bin-type hunting and fishing titles for the PC - not exactly my dream job. But it was a great experience, and allowed me to work my way up the industry food chain. Now I pretty much have enough experience and shipped titles on my resume that I have my choice of AAA companies to work for.

Re:It didn't bring people to the platform

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the answer, my personal guess why Sonys offerings did not spark anything simply is that Sony simply crippled the machine left and right. The Linux on the PS3 was so crippled that no one really used it outside of academic circles and those even were not really overwhelmed.
As for the PS2 it was a rather similar situation too little too late. I know at least one academic institution who have built a ps2 mini cluster which then was collecting dust after the thesis was done. No one was interested, with faster easier to program for resources around.
The same is now given to the PS3, the Linux was so crippled by the underlying VM that you hardly could use the machine for normal work and the scientific computing cheaper alternatives with GPUs were available within a year.
In the end both offerings on the side of sony were just there to get EU import taxes down, which are lower for computer than for gaming machines. And in the end I doubt that Sony really had any interest into offering real Cell workstations, that would have made IBM angry.

How do we know it's not coming back?

[CityZen]

Perhaps they just haven't had time to rework their Linux HAL for the new hardware?

Have they said "No, Linux will never come to the PS3 Slim"?

Re:How do we know it's not coming back?

[masmullin]

We dont. We also dont know if they are going to sell the PS4 in 2 months because they haven't said "No, we will not sell PS4 in two months" either.

Both occurrences are highly unlikely however.

I never understood this...

[sesshomaru]

The big console makers are sort of Tivo-ization to the Nth degree. They give (or rather sell) you these neat computers and then tell you, "Don't worry your pretty little head about them, We will tell you (or rather, sell you) what you can and can't run on them."

Sony was trying to leverage Linux because they are enemies of Microsoft now. They are also enemies of Free Software, though, so it was a half-hearted "we'll just see what happens if we let people do this," situation. Even though they are selling these great, powerful computers, they still insist on controlling the content on them. That hasn't changed, and won't change because the console model requires it.

So, the whole thing where people would rave about Linux on the PS3 didn't make a lot of sense to me. I feel that as far as making use of a console, the SEGA decision to allow the Dreamcast to boot ordinary CDs was a far bigger deal.

The problem is, the hardware from Sony (and Microsoft, and Nintendo) is all locked down to prevent the power user/hacker/programmer from doing what they want with it. The fact that the might allow some locked down version of Linux on there is beside the point.

Re:I never understood this...

[brkello]

This shouldn't be surprising though. And you are right, the Dreamcast booting ordinary CDs was a far bigger deal. It is probably the major reason it failed as a console since it allowed very easy piracy.

With the exception of Nintendo, consoles are sold at a loss. If you are using it for non-gaming purposes, then you are causing Sony to lose money. So people buying PS3 to make cheap clusters are a detriment. This is simply a business decision that makes sense. They were hoping that Slashdot types would be interested in this and then also buy games. The problem is the type of person who is inclined to put Linux on a PS3 tend to be the type who doesn't buy any games. So why support it?

I don't believe they are enemies of free software. They are just friends with making a profit. That's just capitalism.

Re:I never understood this...

[Byzantine]

Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I didn't buy a Dreamcast because I didn't want to play any of the games on it. Maybe that's why it failed?

Re:I never understood this...

[megamerican]

This shouldn't be surprising though. And you are right, the Dreamcast booting ordinary CDs was a far bigger deal. It is probably the major reason it failed as a console since it allowed very easy piracy.

With the exception of Nintendo, consoles are sold at a loss. If you are using it for non-gaming purposes, then you are causing Sony to lose money. So people buying PS3 to make cheap clusters are a detriment. This is simply a business decision that makes sense. They were hoping that Slashdot types would be interested in this and then also buy games. The problem is the type of person who is inclined to put Linux on a PS3 tend to be the type who doesn't buy any games. So why support it?

I don't believe they are enemies of free software. They are just friends with making a profit. That's just capitalism.

While they are capitalist, they subscribe to the same Harvard business model just like everyone else which only looks at next quarter's earnings. This is what has killed pure science R&D that many companies used to invest in, such as Bell Labs.

Encouraging the "slashdot crowd" to purchase PS3 just to install Linux on a console which is sold at a loss was a mistake.

They could have tried selling a completely open system at a break-even price which many people in the "slashdot crowd" may have still bought. Most regular users wouldn't shell out a few hundred dollars most to simply install Linux or take advantage of the cheap cell processor.

Re:I never understood this...

[mr_da3m0n]

I feel that as far as making use of a console, the SEGA decision to allow the Dreamcast to boot ordinary CDs was a far bigger deal.

Unless I am severly mistaken, the Dreamcast did not, by design, boot games from ordinary CDs. At first, the homebrew/piracy scene for the Dreamcast consisted of people using the Kallisto Boot CD (I mean, past the cable debugger stage, uploading code at 9600 bauds is as exciting as watching paint dry), which performed black magic exploting a design flaw, being the ability of the dreamcast to execute MIL-CD disks, if I recall well.

Ripping games off the proprietary GDRom format was terribly difficult because it had a low density track near the center, a small non-data track (visible, containing an hologram) that was normally not bypassable by normal cdrom drives, followed by a 1GiB, high density data track that wasn't exactly impervious to wear and tear.

Pirated games also had to be "padded" with garbage data to push the actual game data towards the outer edge of the disk since unlike ordinary disks, the drive read from the outside towards the inside, probably in order to avoid having the head skip over the low density. This had the result of making any pirated copy unbearably slow and glitchy unless padded, for the head had to move back to the inner track all the time while being noisy and probably shortening its lifespan. For example, crazy taxi would have a hard time loading environnement textures in time, and you'd end up floating on invisible roads and bumping in undefined walls.

You'd think the Dreamcast booted normal CDs because after a while people began embedding the boot cd code into the rips themselves, negating the need for a boot disk.

Don't get me wrong, deep inside i'm a Sega fanboy, but they certainly tried to prevent end users from running unlicensed code on their console, just like they did on the Genesis, even if it was cartridge based. They certainly did not embrace homebrew software, hacking, and piracy.

This piece of information made me feel like i'm slowing drifting into the older generation of the internet. Is it too early to start drinking?

Re:I never understood this...

[supersat]

I'm not sure it was a conscious decision by Sega. It's total security by obscurity -- you have to create a second data track for it to work. Just burning a regular data CD-R doesn't work.

Of course, once people figured this out, the piracy rate went out of control. It might have been the final nail in the Dreamcast's coffin.

Re:I never understood this...

[Anonymous Coward]

There are some incorrect information here. The Sega Dreamcast, by design, allowed regular CDROMs to boot. This was not a "design flaw" ie a bug; it was intentional. Don't ask me why though! I have no idea why they did that (unless it was put in there by a rogue programmer or something...) If this backdoor had not been there, it would have been quite more difficult to pirate Dreamcast games, because it had many protective features: The bootrom would check to make sure the bootfile was outside the 100min mark, making it impossible to boot a regular CDROM. The middle track with the "Sega" and what-not (it was not a hologram by the way) actually contained data, which was checked for concistency (I'm not 100% sure of this because I didn't verify it personally). This data contained a special bit-pattern that regular CDROMs normally couldn't write without creating a coaster. In order to protect the integrity of the bootrom from modification, the data was passed through the Holly chip which calculated a checksum. If it didn't match, the GDROM was disabled.

As for the backdoor, it basically disabled all of these security measures. Provided that the CDROM was an XA disc with two sessions, it ignored the 100min mark and the protection track. It didn't put down all defenses though, but employed a laughably weak technique of loading the bootfile in a pseudo-random order in memory. This meant that the bootfile had to be "scrambled" on disc in order to load properly. This was a very weak counter-measure, because the blocksize was 2KiB (IIRC) so an executable less than that would not need to be scrambled. There was also another flaw in that before reading the executable, the firmware also loaded the IP.BIN which could also be made to execute. And then of course there was the fact that the algorithm for the pseudo-random loading was easily reversible. Sega had one last trick up their sleeve, which was that after loading the executable from a CDROM, the firmware would poke the bootrom checksum register which disabled the GDROM, meaning one could not load any more data of the CDROM after booting. This could have been effective had the disabling remained in effect until reboot (ensured by hardware). Instead the GDROM was easily enabled by simply poking the checksum register and passing data through the Holly checksum calculator which magically re-enabled the drive once again upon a valid checksum calculation! It seems Utopia didn't quite figure this out though, because what they did on their boot-CD was to copy the entire syBtExit bootrom call, including various unnecessary stuff! They simply put a nop on the write instruction to prevent the syscall from overwriting RAM. Seems they didn't realize just exactly what was enabling the GDROM in there, hehehe!

Some other errors: the drive wasn't reading data backwards. It was CAV (constant angular velocity) which means the inner part of the disc will have a slower velocity than the outer part and so by necessity also a slower data rate. By padding the disc, data is pushed outward which increases the data rate.

And the homebrew scene never used the Utopia boot-CD for development purposes: we already knew how to make our own bootable CDs. How to do this was independently discovered by at least five people; myself, Datel, Utopia included...

Re:I never understood this...

[BitZtream]

Way to show us you don't have any fucking clue what tivoization is, just another fanboy using words he doesn't understand to try and blame someone else for Linux not ruling the world rather than facing reality.

I love how you guys act like what software manufactures do is different than practically every single other industry in the world. Do you realize how much you sound like whiny, ignorant, little bitches?

You can't put random engine into your car without a lot of hacking. You can't run random software on your fridge, without a lot of hacking. You can't randomly repurpose your microwave without a lot of hacking.

You bitch about how unstable Windows is, when that instability for the most part is due to its openness, and then when someone takes the other approach, in this instance so their game console runs reliably and provides a solid user experience (I'm going to pretend for this argument that it would actually run reliably and didn't crash, just pretend with me) and you bitch about that.

Sigh, and this is why Linux will never get taken seriously, too many whiners, and slashdot puts them right up front, to show the world why it should be avoided.

If you guys would just start acting sane, businesses wouldn't be nearly so standoffish about using a free OS. It really is great for them, but any time they do the slightest thing that you don't like, you fucking explode like the world is about to end. Makes it far easier for them to just avoid you completely, just like you avoid that crazy nutjob ex-girlfriend/boyfriend and Stallman.

They crippled it

[TheVidiot]

I run Yellow Dog 6.2 on my PS3, and it isn't too bad for web browsing (superior to the PS3 browser) and checking email, among other computing tasks. They crippled access to the full graphics capability of the machine, however, which created a much slower experience that you would expect. Perhaps Sony should put more effort into putting common computing tasks into their XMB... add an email client and improve the browser, at least.

Re:They crippled it

[CannonballHead]

You mean, make it into a normal computer? ;)

Re:They crippled it

[TheVidiot]

I know... but it's only one box, instead of two. It's capable of more!

Re:They crippled it

[steelfood]

Yeah, those damn universal turing machines and their damn limitations.

At least we have Microsoft and the XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

At least Microsoft is friendly to Linux on the XBox and is sending the message that it cares about developers. The XBox is by far the easiest platform to develop for and the most open.

Re:At least we have Microsoft and the XBox

[Zarf]

At least Microsoft is friendly to Linux on the XBox and is sending the message that it cares about developers. The XBox is by far the easiest platform to develop for and the most open.

Is this a joke? I'm not sure.

Re:At least we have Microsoft and the XBox

[VGPowerlord]

At least Microsoft is friendly to Linux on the XBox and is sending the message that it cares about developers. The XBox is by far the easiest platform to develop for and the most open.

Is this a joke? I'm not sure.

You saw the words "Microsoft" and "most open" in the same sentence and yet you have to ask?

Although I've heard it is the easiest platform to develop for...

Re:At least we have Microsoft and the XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

The first half definitely, but the second half has a grain of truth to it. Anybody can get access to XNA.

Re:At least we have Microsoft and the XBox

[Zarf]

You saw the words "Microsoft" and "most open" in the same sentence and yet you have to ask?

Was that sarcasm? I'm not sure.

Do we really need the commentary?

[brkello]

Just summarize the article, don't whine to me about how you don't like Sony. I am able to evaluate actions they take individually. Rootkit = bad. PS3 not supporting linux = good business decision. They are in no way related to each other since this isn't replacing Linux on the PS3 with a rootkit.

And seriously wake up. If you get pissed at Sony for the dumb things they do, then you probably wouldn't buy a product from anyone if you actually paid attention to all the crap that has gone on in each company's history.

Re:Do we really need the commentary?

[masmullin]

Im not mad at sony... Im simply not going to buy a PS3 and the 10games I would have eventually bought.

I was thinking of getting a PS3 until I heard that it would no longer support linux. Linux would simply have extended the life of the system for me (I would have used it as some sort of server when the next gen of systems came out).

Re:Do we really need the commentary?

[ozsynergy]

Good Business Decision? Look at the market: WII - No Linux - Targetted by home brew and warez scene -- CRACKED XBOX360 - No Linux - Targetted by home brew and warez scene -- CRACKED PS3 - Linux - Only targetted by warez scene - Not cracked If this decision motivates a joint cracking effort then they kiss millions of dollars in game revenue good bye. All because they were to cheap to pay a developer to maintain drivers ?

Re:Do we really need the commentary?

[brkello]

Yet somehow the Wii and 360 are doing better than the PS3. So does that mean cracking is good for business? Sorry, I don't buy it. This just makes it so people don't build clusters of PS3s anymore. When the console is sold at a loss, you really only want the gamers buying your product...not the people who want to install Linux on it to get to play with a cell processor on the cheap.

Re:Do we really need the commentary?

[brkello]

Then don't get a slim. Duh.

Re:Do we really need the commentary?

[BitZtream]

Really? All because you can't run Linux on it? Thats got to be the dumbest fucking thing I've heard anyone say yet.

I'm not going to buy a product because it no longer supports this retarded way to run an OS that a jerk off to, even though I have no earthly idea why I would want to run the OS on the device anyway except maybe to contribute to some folding@home stats so my tiny epenis is a few microns larger.

If you're going to pay that much for hardware now, and your whole justification for it revolves around how at some point in the future, when its practically useless, you could run some other app on it ... Do you realize how retarded you are being?

Re:Do we really need the commentary?

[dangitman]

If you want to run Linux on a PS3, you can still buy the full-sized model which still supports Linux. So there is no excuse. But I'm expecting you just wanted to bitch about Sony, and weren't actually intending on running Linux on a PS3.

Re:Do we really need the commentary?

[masmullin]

Where the fuck did I bitch about this?

I own an Xbox and an Xbox360 and am slightly pissed that in 3 years they will both be hanging out in the basement with my SNES collecting dust. I bought the 360 because it was considerably cheaper than the PS3.

The only reason for me to buy another game system is if I could get some mileage out of it after it is replaced by the next gen.

I might still buy the old system, we'll see if it's still available for purchase in 6months.

Re:Do we really need the commentary?

[masmullin]

exactly. duh

Re:Do we really need the commentary?

[masmullin]

Yeah really you half brained homocandy. Im not going to buy something if it doesn't do what I want it to do.

Is that so surprising for your petite mass of pea much between your ears.

Do you realize how retarded YOU are? Probably not because your a brainwashed "ps triple" fanboi.

Re:Do we really need the commentary?

[brkello]

So that means you can get one of the PS3s out there right now and still do exactly what you wanted.

I'm with you on this one.

[Malkin]

I agree. This quote really made me giggle:

But by omitting the option to install GNU/Linux on its new PS3, it has removed the final reason for the open source world to care about Sony.

Unless they -- I don't know -- like playing console games, like the vast majority of people who buy game consoles. My microwave oven doesn't run Linux, either, but it somehow manages to still be useful to me.

Honestly, I think out-of-touch rants like this only serve to further reinforce the "Linux zealot" stereotype, and drive the mainstream away from Linux.

Re:I'm with you on this one.

[Dragoness Eclectic]

My microwave oven doesn't run Linux, either, but it somehow manages to still be useful to me.

*whistles innocently*

Don't be too sure about that. I've worked on embedded systems on consumer devices, and you'd be amazed at what runs Linux these days. Hardware manufacturers really like NOT paying license fees & royalties for their embedded firmware.

Re:I'm with you on this one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only have you failed to show that it was a bad metaphor but you're making the exact same point as TFA, only in a roundabout way. The open source world cares as much about the PS3 as a microwave oven. Yep. That about sums it up nicely.

Re:I'm with you on this one.

[IrquiM]

Rants like this are not from true Linux people, only 14 year-old wannabes (or Stallman) - but yes, I agree that it might drive the mainstream away from Linux.

Re:I'm with you on this one.

[Malkin]

That is an entirely fair point! I've worked on embedded systems, too, and you are totally right. It is entirely plausible that my microwave could be running Linux. I suppose it would have been more correct to say that I couldn't install Linux on my microwave, rather than that my microwave doesn't run it. And if I could, the level of difficulty probably wouldn't be worth the (admittedly awesome) ability to reprogram the preset buttons to perfectly nuke my favorite microwavable foods, instead of whatever random assortment of crap the manufacturer thought I would want to microwave.

While I'm dreaming, I would love to be able to write new programs for my bread machine, damn it. It has no setting that can accommodate the extended kneading and rise time necessary for a loaf of whole-grain sourdough started from a home-grown levain. Clearly, I should invest in one of the more expensive programmable models, but that possibility doesn't keep me from itching to hack the one I've got.

Re:I'm with you on this one.

[Malkin]

The open source world cares as much about the PS3 as a microwave oven. Yep. That about sums it up nicely.

If that were the case, then PS3s would be nearly ubiquitous, and no one would remember how to get by without one. ;-)

Re:I'm with you on this one.

[Monsuco]

Unless they -- I don't know -- like playing console games,

Wait, there are GAMES for the PS3?

Re:I'm with you on this one.

[Malkin]

Mwahaha! Perhaps, instead of "like playing console games," I should have said, "like playing Little Big Planet."

I'll file this away under...

[Schnoogs]

...who gives a shit. People buy the PS3 for two reasons...to play games and to watch BluRay. I'm sure Sony's stock will plummet once the market finds out that 45 people no longer have a reason to buy a PS3.

We were warned

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought mine when they announced the price drop, knowing this was the last chance to get a ps3 that can run linux.

I think the fact they even allow it in the first place shows they thought it would be cool.

Even then it was limited

[planetoid]

Didn't Yellow Dog Linux and its utilities limit the hardware the user could and couldn't access if he wanted to develop? I think that said something about Sony's commitment to basic user freedoms long before this happened.

Re:Even then it was limited

[Anonymous Coward]

It was the hypervisor that did the limiting, and AFAIK the only thing limited was the game save partition on the hard drive and the video card. This is only a problem if you wanted to play (3D) games in Linux, and at that point I'd just do what I do on my dual boot laptop when I want to play games -- REBOOT in to the right tool for the job.

The hypervisor itself is what Sony stopped maintaining.

When it comes to development there is nothing stopping you from compiling and linking to 3D graphics libraries and testing them on the PS3. It will just use a software renderer instead of the hardware. After you have it compiled and tested it's a quick scp to a proper desktop to see how it runs with hardware 3D.

I think people are under the impression that Linux on a PS3 == able to code games for a PS3. Not so much...

sadly...

[TheBilgeRat]

Sony has always seemed a many-headed hydra when it comes to innovation and marketability. The minidisc comes to mind. The engineers come out with a great product, and the marketers and lawyers drive it into the dirt and stifle innovation. Sony always breaks my heart-but my jilted relationships counseling has taught me to just say no to her seductive advances. I'll just get burned in the end.

links to sony funded open source projects

[Anonymous Coward]

http://opensource.imageworks.com

So I guess the game isn't over is it?

Be fair, now.

[Toonol]

All Sony has done is reverted to the status quo for game consoles. The Wii and 360 don't allow Linux to be run. While Sony should be praised for including a (mostly gimped) linux option with the PS3, they shouldn't be condemned any more than Nintendo or Microsoft for not including it. I'm not a Sony fan at all.

There's FAR better things to criticize Sony about.

I hate you Sony, I hate you..

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an enemy of open source (and all that's good in the world).

Now let me buy more of your cheap subsidized hardware...

Re:Actually not much of an option

[Bluesman]

I think you might be misinformed. I installed 3.0 yesterday, and the option is still there.

So, let me get this right, Sony:

[Anonymous Coward]

You're telling world-leading cryptanalysts who bought hundreds of PS3s to use in scientific computation (including, I note, hash-smashing and other related crypto-cracking) that they can't get the new, cheaper-to-buy, cheaper-to-run, cooler PS3 Slims for their cluster. You're telling them, moreover, they can't do what they like with hardware they bought.

People who now have a very strong financial interest in getting Linux - or, indeed, anything else - to run on the new models, no matter what. People who are unparalleled experts at hardware and software security. People with hardware reverse-engineering labs with tunneling electron microscopes. People with their own in-house chip fabs. People who can give full sets of notes and FPGA data to other people, not all of which live in countries covered by the EUCD/DMCA.

People who now finally have an incentive to sponsor the world's first PS3 mod-chip, and provide complete schematics, hardware, testing, readouts, and funding.

Thanks, Sony!

Re:So, let me get this right, Sony:

[sexconker]

Bob:
Hi Sony?
This is Bob.
Remember when we bought 128 PS3s for our cluster?
We need 128 more.
Give us some slims with linux, plz.

Sony:
K.

A lot cheaper than paying Frank to look into getting Linux on a conventional slim.

Re:So, let me get this right, Sony:

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony:
Sounds like you need Cell HPCs. -> IBM

The entire point of running the cluster on PS3s was to use off-the-shelf hardware. Any custom hardware would be much, much, much more expensive than that.

Re:So, let me get this right, Sony:

[Kenshin]

People who are never going to buy a single game for those hundreds of consoles, Sony's only way of making back money on the console they sell at a loss.

It fights piracy

[Late Adopter]

The hypervisor gave homebrew developers a way to make apps without enabling warez. But now the homebrew community and the warez community are brought back together by the need to find a hack to access the console resources. And once one finds a way in, the other gets it for free, no stopping them.

Linux support seemed like an intelligent way to take a stab at piracy on the cheap, while paying lip-service to Open Source, etc, and getting a tiny amount of street-cred for it. It may be that's not worth the cost to them anymore... we'll see if that turns out to be a mistake or not.

Re:It fights piracy

[marcansoft]

This. Locking multiple groups of people out of your hardware with the same system is a great way to get it cracked faster. It's doubly stupid when the group that you've just locked out is the more technically capable one (Linux users and serious researchers), while the other group (piracy) tends to feed off of what other people have already done for them.

Just read this table. Let's see how long it takes for that black pair of boxes to become grey and red.

I guess that depends on who you are.

[symbolset]

These guys get good results.

Re:I guess that depends on who you are.

[Darkness404]

Well that is because that is what the Cell was really designed to do, and that is number crunching. Games are just similar enough to that to make good results. When you optimize stuff for the Cell it is fast. The problem is the Cell is a total pain to program for and in general things that work great for the Cell turn out terrible for every other platform and vice versa.

Re:I guess that depends on who you are.

[gbarules2999]

Oh, bah, exceptions. This is Slashdot, dammit. Hyperbole and yelling!

So why CENSORSHIP?

[faragon]

The censored message (noticed by pjmlp) was a reply from Sarah to a question I made (Why no Linux in PS3 Slim?). The answer -verbatim- it was recovered because of mail lists and by backups: at Slashdot (1), and also in a "repost" in the same PS2-Linux Sony's forum (2, 3).

Censored thread, recovered from mail list backup:

http://playstation2-linux.com/forum/message.php?msg_id=51037

Message: 51037
BY: aragon
DATE: 2009-Aug-21 06:26
SUBJECT: Why no Linux in PS3 Slim?

Hello,

I've found very disgusting the fact of removing the Other OS option in the PS3 Slim model, and the worst: without explanation. In previous cuts, as it was with the PS2 compatibility it was explained that was in order to cut price, removing PS2 CPU chip first, and PS2 graphic and memory subsistem second, which I found acceptable as explanation.

Why? Is being used unencrypted RAM access or similar? Or is just a plain rip-off?

I know that there are many kind people at Sony Computer Entertainment, so please, if possible, give at least a short explanation of why it has been discontinued the Other OS option in the new PS3s.

Thank you in advance,

aragon

P.S. PS2 Linux user since 2002, and since 2007 for the PS3.
P.S.2. I still can not believe it, what a disgrace.

Removed answer and further replies:

Read and respond to this message at: http://playstation2-linux.com/forum/message.php?msg_id=51038
By: sarahe

Hi aragon,

I'm sorry that you are frustrated by the lack of comment specifically regarding the withdrawal of support for OtherOS on the new PS3 slim.

The reasons are simple: The PS3 Slim is a major cost reduction involving many changes to hardware components in the PS3 design. In order to offer the OtherOS install, SCE would need to continue to maintain the OtherOS hypervisor drivers for any significant hardware changes - this costs SCE. One of our key objectives with the new model is to pass on cost savings to the consumer with a lower retail price. Unfortunately in this case the cost of OtherOS install did not fit with the wider objective to offer a lower cost PS3.

We'll see if we can get the offical OtherOS page updated with something to this effect so that an official explanation is provided. Thank you for your comments.

Sarah.

- - - - - - - -

Read and respond to this message at: http://playstation2-linux.com/forum/message.php?msg_id=51039 By: aragon

Thank you very much for the answer, Sarah.

Anyway, if its just a software related point, I hope that it may be addressed in the future, if users request is enough important for making worth the driver update effort.

Best regards,

aragon

- - - - - - - -

Read and respond to this message at: http://playstation2-linux.com/forum/message.php?msg_id=51040
By: f5inet

Thanks for the extra-official explain, sarahe.

could will be possible for SCE to develop and sell a 'PS3-Slim OtherOS license'?. since there is a few wannabe/homebrew projects running in PS3 hardware (the cheapest IBM-cell developer machine), and these projects are dumped to dust with this major revision of PS3-architectur

Re:So why CENSORSHIP?

[BitZtream]

Dear fuckwad, please learn what censorship actually is and stop calling everything you don't like censorship in an attempt to gain notice, you are just lowering the value of the word and making it so more and more people don't give a fuck when you scream censorship.

Please also learn that it is completely acceptable to every normal person on the planet to censor certain things at certain times, regardless your inability to understand that, or the fact that the world doesn't revolve around you.

Re:So why CENSORSHIP?

[faragon]

Dear fuckwad, please learn what censorship actually is and stop calling everything you don't like censorship in an attempt to gain notice, you are just lowering the value of the word and making it so more and more people don't give a fuck when you scream censorship.

Please also learn that it is completely acceptable to every normal person on the planet to censor certain things at certain times, regardless your inability to understand that, or the fact that the world doesn't revolve around you.

It may be "completely acceptable" for you.

Re:So why CENSORSHIP?

[Anonymous Coward]

With this explanation, I do wonder how much the hardware can have changed that makes it expensive to keep the Linux option. Surely the hardware stayed similar enough to the original hardware to keep game compatibility. I suspect the real cost of Linux support comes from people buying the subsidised console as a cheap cell based computer and not buying any games, meaning Sony makes a loss on those consoles.

Re:So why CENSORSHIP?

[faragon]

I suspect the real cost of Linux support comes from people buying the subsidised console as a cheap cell based computer and not buying any games, meaning Sony makes a loss on those consoles.

Yes, Sony numbers could guess that running Linux could shave the time dedicated for playing (buying) PS3 games, so cutting the possibility, the system is only worth for running PS3 games and cinema.

However, in the other side of the coin, where I am, I'm not willing to buy new Sony devices, at all. Also, as geek, I will encourage to not buy anything from Sony. They are up to cut their products, OK, but I'm free to not buy from them anymore (Sony electronics, Sony entertainment, Columbia Pictures, etc.).

FOSS lunacy

[Anonymous Coward]

it has removed the final reason for the open source world to care about Sony. Unless, of course, you find Google's new distribution alliance with Sony to pre-install Chrome on its PCs exciting in some way.

1. "Final Reason"- so Teh Lunix on a VAIO?

2. "TEH GOOGEL!!!11!!"- how does Google and Chrome somehow equate to good news for open source?

This is one thing I've never been able to understand, but it links in to their whole "everyone who hates Microsoft is a really nice guy, and supporting them is magically good for Teh Open Scarce!!!" mentality. It's bad enough that Linux is already a defacto subsidiary of IBM. And if people don't think so, check into the harsh reality of what would happen if IBM decided to withdraw it's multibillion dollar a year support of Linux development.

Like it really matters anyway...

[frankjr]

They are not friends of the free software world, but enemies. If they actually cared about Linux they would not be continually keeping us out of the Blu-ray world completely by their insane DRM schemes. The only reason Sony ever cared about putting user-programmable (and somewhat to highly crippled, I might add) parts on their consoles is to get tax benefits in Europe for selling a 'computer' and not a 'gaming device,' of which the European countries did not find to be a convincing line of argument. As for me, I won't be supporting a company whose policies help keep Linux crippled and out of the mainstream.

Re:Like it really matters anyway...

[Caue]

the problem looks so much bigger in these fanboi comments; "care about linux"? what are you, linux's father or guardian of some sort? grow up dude, sony makes consoles, not linux-friendly computers so the fanbois can run their own cell clusters. I was as bummed as anyone here about it, but I understand that it was a fairly misguided option from sony when they first enabled it. Their goal is to make more money so you can buy ps4 some 4-5 years from now. everything else is just rubbish. don't like the way they are trying to earn money from their work? open up a hw company, brand it up and make your own god damn linux friendly fanboi console.

Re:Like it really matters anyway...

[CronoCloud]

Linux on the PS2 or PS3 has nothing to do with that tax, which was eliminated before either was released. Where are you people getting your information?

Re:Actually not much of an option

[CronoCloud]

I have a CECHE01 PS3 with a Linux install on it, I updated to 3.00 without worrying about losing my ability to boot or install a newer Linux distro. The options are still there and they work, just like I still have the ability to virtual PS2 memory cards and play PS2 games even though PS3's newer than my model can't do that.

Drupal

[michaelcole]

This headline is dramatic and uninformed. Linux isn't the only open source project out there.

Sony has made huge contributions to the Drupal CMS (Website Content Management System).

They have hired a full-time programmer who is 100% dedicated to open source (CCK/Views modules).
They have sponsored major improvements to Drupal - http://drupal.org/node/383954

Ease up on the rhetoric, before you sour other open-source projects.

Maybe you want to couple your perceived right to hack the PS3 with open source? That's dangerous. Make an open-sourced PS3 and no problem. Mike

Message Received By Sony... and everyone else

[SuperKendall]

In the future Sony will refrain from supporting Linux in anything initially, because they get more flack for not supporting it in all models than do other console makers for never having supported it to begin with.

It's this kind of mean-spirited crap that keeps Open Source as generally a second-class citizen on platforms.

An old story...

[rickb928]

Kinda like the Linksys WRT54G 'controversy'.

You could at one time buy a 54G that would happily load any of several open-source firmware options. Of course, having a Linux-based router was somethinng of a novelty then, and after twisting arms and getting linksys to actually obey the GPL, code was written and we had fun.

Then Linksys upgraded the WRT54 series, and introduced some with minimal RAM/ROM hardware. Oh my, you would think the world stopped.

Eventually, Linksys actually shipped some with the old hardware, at greater cost, and you could have fun again.

If Sony wants to reduce retail price by cheapening components and eliminating the option to load other OSes, well, their choice. Go buy a Wii. Or an xBox. Or a PC. They left you.

Zealotry makes for poor public relations

[Anonymous Coward]

The constant 'I want, I want, I want!' that comes from the less skilled advocates of open source does a poor job at pushing the agenda.

I love open source, contribute to it, use it daily but I guess I'm just at a point where I don't expect everyone to adhear to my world view, and certianly don't slap them around if they do something I disagree with.

If you've ever been in a meeting and had someone at the table who wouldn't change their mind, compromise, or hear any other opinion.. slanted stories like this strike me the same way. Who cares what Sony does? They're an entertainment company. Don't like it? Don't buy it.

Sony BMG != Sony

[Anonymous Coward]

The 'infamous rootkit' was Sony BMG - a company that was 50% owned by Bertelsmann. Yet nobody ever mentions the Bertelsmann rootkit - why not? Laziness, ignorance, or maybe because it's a good anti-Sony catchphrase.

Noticed that since Sony bought out Bertelsmann, Sony Music have been moving towards working with the new order, rather than fighting it?

Noticed that Sony are championing open format eBooks?

Noticed that Sony Walkmen are drag and drop, and don't enforce any DRM?

No, Sony are evil, so close your eyes and ears to it all. Go play in your Apple & Microsoft pits. Go install Linux on your Xbox.

31,933 PS3s are being used for sci computing

[hxnwix]

Nobody uses the PS3 for supercomputing these days. The ugly secret of the PS3 is that its 'extreme performance' was mostly marketing.

Folding@Home maintains a popular PS3 client that is currently used by 31,933 PS3s. The PS3s provide about 26% of the total x86 equivalent TFLOPS available to F@H, although PS3s represent just 9% of the total F@H CPU population.

Let me emphasize that: thirty one thousand, nine hundred thirty three PS3s actively contribute to Folding@Home. That's a long way from zero, my friend.

A rant is now a story?

[gravis777]

I actually tried installing Linux on my PS3 when I first got it. Got all the way to the configuration screen and it would not detect any of my USB keyboards. So could not complete the isntall. The bad thing is, rebooting booted back into Linux and to the setup screen. I called Sony and asked them how to get back to the PS3 OS, and they said that when I shut down Linux, there was an option to boot back into the PS3. I was like, um, yeah, but the Linux installation was not successful. They were like, oh, um, return the unit to the store and we hope you got the extended warrenty, otherwise they may not take it back.

Truthfully, no big loss. Those who I know who did successfully get Linux installed on there did it mainly for geek reasons - I cannot think of anyone who actually USED it for anything. My understanding is they crippled the hardware in Linux anyways.

Truthfully, though, you are ranting against Sony? I am not a Sony fan boy, but, truthfully, as far as gaming platforms go, there is only one even remotely in the same league, and then you will have the Microsoft bashers on you. And last I checked, you could not install Linux on it either.

Re:A rant is now a story?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could have held the power button on the top right down for 10 seconds until it beeped twice and then the PS3 would have reset itself to the default configuration, which is GameOS and 480i video.

I figured this out about 2 minutes after my Linux install failed because of poorly documented installation instructions.

About an hour later, I had Gentoo Linux up and running on Stage3 and it was compiling a new kernel. 15 minutes later and the kernel was done.

That was 15 months ago. Nowadays I have gcc ppc64 cross-compiler running on my 4-way Phenom, so the original 15 minute kernel compile is about 4 minutes via distccd.

The PS3 makes a nice Linux machine. I'm sorry to hear that you didn't have the patience to get-er-done, but I'm glad to hear that there is one less impatient clueless id10t running PS3-Linux. :P~

pointless drivel

[EjectButton]

This article is bs, the only reason Sony allowed the installation of other operations systems was so they could get a break on import tariffs in certain regions where game consoles are hit more than general purpose computers.
As for removing the "final reason for the open source world to care about Sony", the Linux experience on the ps3 was never good to begin with, you never got full access to the hardware, I guess this might be unfortunate for some people but it's really not all that important.

With respect to the rootkit nonsense, what does that have to do with anything in the "open source world" other than a cheap way of saying "I think Sony stinks, here is something they are doing I think is stinky, also remember that one time they did something totally unrelated that was also stinky, so obviously I'm right Q.E.D."

Sony uses open source and contributes to some open source projects, for example they use the linux kernel and some other tools on their high-end televisions and DVRs, they also contributed kernel code to get support for the cell processor.
That said, this does not mean Sony is a "friend" to open source, or an enemy for that matter, they are like many other multinational corporations. Unless there are some people high up on the company or a large number of people elsewhere in the company that have a soft spot for a particular movement or project they are generally going to behave like a short-sighted sociopath and do what they want with little consideration for how it will be seen by anyone outside their target audience for a particular product (sometimes they don't even pay much attention to that). Anthropomorphizing corporations into heroes or villains might be useful in getting people emotionally engaged, might get you a lot of hits on your blog, and might give people casually interested in the issue a little talking point they can repeat giving them a feeling as though they have some insight into the situation. But in reality it does little toward giving readers anything beyond a very superficial understanding of the issue, the parties involved, or their motivations.

Re:Actually not much of an option

[webheaded]

Why do people just make things like this up? I never understand it. It's not like someone else isn't going to come along and know that you're full of shit, so why bother lying when it's so easy to find your lie. If you say something without looking it up, someone else will...or even better, someone else will test it.

I am SO tired of people spreading FUD around like facts when they haven't done any research or they know they are lying outright and that the contradictions to their lie are easily found. Granted people are stupid for taking things like this at face value, but really that's the problem isn't it? Some people may be sheep, but it's annoying when people like you manipulate them into thinking things aren't true. It's kind of like all the FUD I keep seeing about the health care bill. Surely people can find VALID criticisms for it instead of resorting to lying. There are plenty to be had. Quit being assholes.

Hands up!

[PhunkySchtuff]

Hands up all those who:

A) Have a PS3
B) Installed Linux on it
C) Used Linux on it for more than 5 minutes as a "Hey, look, this thing runs linux. Cool... Reboot."

This is a non-event, no-one buys a PS3 to install Linux on it as the cool hardware that you might want to play with isn't accessible from Linux anyway.

It's the other way round

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony held out a hand, they gave us OtherOS on the PS3, and you lot of pathetic Microsoft Xbox loving retards just bitched and moaned about anything Redmond told you to hate...

I fully understand why Sony' aren't prepared to continue investing in OtherOS, when people gripe so much.

Total FUD

[MikeBabcock]

Let me get this straight, Sony actually bothered allowing us to install Linux on the PS3 in the first place and they're no friend to open source or hackers? Since when did the competition let you install any third party software on their machines at all? Sure, it had limitations to protect their investment, but it was an option at all. Now it seems its no longer economical to continue making the device that way but surely someone else recognizes the severely short-sighted Sony-hating required to claim that somehow the only console company to offer Linux support ever (on two of its consoles in a row no less) has some special standing as a parriah to the open source community.

Honestly...

[Anonymous Coward]

Have any of you tried running Open Suse on a PS3? It's slow as hell and not worth the trouble.
Nothing of value was lost with losing the "Install other OS option" with the PS3.

and...

[buddyglass]

...it has removed the final reason for the open source world to care about Sony.

And nothing of value was lost.

PS3 3rd Party OS Support Due to PS2 Customs Fight

[BBF_BBF]

IMO Sony *never* supported the Open Source community with either the PS2 or PS3 to benefit the community... I would say that Sony was using the Open Source community to attempt to give themselves financial gain (50 million Euros to be exact).

Why sould I say such things? Well... up until late June 2006, Sony was fighting a legal battle with the EU to get a customs rebate (worth 50 million Euros) on its PS2's since Sony claimed that they were "computers" not "video game consoles" and I would suppose that the ability to install a third party OS was a major part of their argument. The distinction was important because up until 2004, the EU didn't have any import duties on computers, but did on game consoles... So I would surmise that if Sony did not include the same "computer" capability on their PS3 to install a third part OS, it would weaken their claim that the PS2 was a computer. Since the verdict was handed down so close to the PS3 release date, IMHO Sony probably decided to leave the third party OS support in anyways just in case they could appeal the decision.

Fast forward to 2009, when no appeals are possible in the PS2 customs case, Sony has no reason to keep the third party OS support in the PS3 and removes it when the next hardware major revision came out and a plausible "face saving" explanation for the removal is possible. (Sony still is a Japanese company, so a "face saving" explanation is important... if it were MSFT, they would have dropped the support the second that any chance of appeal was not possible. ;-))

News Article About the PS2 Customs Decision: http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/features/uk-court-ps2-not-a-computer/69084/?biz=1

sinking

[Anonymous Coward]

They will never be open source friendly. They will never open source the atrac drm so that I can get "my recordings" off my minidisc player without running windows. That's why it sits in a box. It's is so frustating seeing awesome hardware crippled.

Sony is a sinking ship.

Trolling?

[drolli]

They are so totally supressing open source, that is why they have a list of TV products containing GPL (the page containing the linux downloads for their cameras was featured some time ago on slashdot)
www.sony.com/linux

Lets note it - this is not the usual 20-levels-CMSd-put-in-by-trainee URL we see so often when it comes to barely fulfilling the GPL (usually only to avoid beeing sued) by offering the source *somewhere* on the companies HP. This is a top-level one-word-link on their domain. I am sure such a thing has to be approved pretty high up in the hierachy.

Look at it. To say it clearly: Sony openly open sourced thing long before other big players. No i am not a fanboy of Sony. As a matter of fact i made a decision not to buy their (great) P-series portable, because i did not want to spend time installing linux myself. I don't own a PS3. However i understand (other than the FP) that

a) Sony has many BIG departments, where each probably has its own interests.

b) Sony as a whole company obviously has *NO* strong anti-linux position (otherwise there would *NOT* be several departments publishing linux products).

c) The Games department has probably to worry abot things different from linux right now. Also, i personally understand that they do not want to waste time on providing the possibility to subsidize computing power. (If you buy a console you know that it is subsidized, there is no lie about that. Nobody is holding a gun against your head forcing you to buy it).

This link contains the rest of devices

[drolli]

http://www.sony.net/Products/Linux/common/search.html

(Would i have cheched that before, maybe i'd have bought a p-series. The "instant mode" is linux)

Re:Mod Troll the Article

[Anonymous Coward]

kenp2002,

I hate to break the news to you but you, sir, are an idiot who lacks the ability for critical thinking. I don't blame you for being an idiot. I blame your teachers and your school system because they were obviously too lazy to educate you properly about how to use your head for anything other than a hat-rack and a pie-hole.

The hypervisor runs all the time on the old PS3. It runs when you're playing games. It runs when you're playing Blu-Rays. It runs when you're in Linux. The purpose of the hypervisor is to restrict software application access to certain hardware. This is to make it compliant with the HDCP and Blu-Ray specifications.

The PS3-Slim also has a hypervisor and it runs all the time too, in all the same circumstances listed above, minus the Linux part. SCEA claims they don't want to pay their developers, who have already done a lot of work on the old PS3 hypervisor Linux kernel drivers (a damn fine job they have done too, by the way), to work on writing Linux kernel drivers for the new PS3 hypervisor code.

This claim doesn't hold water. I seriously doubt the expense of writing Linux kernel drivers for the new hypervisor would be that great because all of the video games use the same hypervisor. I also seriously doubt all of the games will have to be re-written to use the new hypervisor code in the PS3-Slim. That would actually cost a *LOT* of money and cause a *LOT* of problems for *ALL* of the video game developers.

This is the crux of the debate, which you apparently aren't logical enough to understand.

Why did SCEA remove the OtherOS option for the PS3-Slim?

OtherOS only required 4 megabytes of Flash RAM, which is about 10 cents worth these days.

I seriously doubt they're using Flash RAM chips that are 4M smaller simply to save 10 cents per unit, simply because Flash RAM manufacturers don't typically make Flash RAM in 4M increments anymore.

I also doubt that the new hypervisor and/or GameOS needs 4M more Flash RAM to store the code necessary to support the new PS3-Slim hardware, but it is a possibility.

Is Sony and SCEA fed up with the Open Source community?

This is not very likely because Sony uses Linux and other Open Source products in many of their own products. There does now seem to be an omission of the PNG developers in the credits screen on the XMB with firmware 3.0, but I can't recall with certainty that there was a PNG credit in the older firmware credits screen. Perhaps the PNG developers no longer require explicit credit. Other pieces of Open Source software are still listed in the credits of the XMB with firmware 3.0.

So I ask again, why did SCEA remove OtherOS for the PS3-Slim, now that we've ruled out some cost concerns and all open-source-hating?

Did Steve Ballmer send Jack Tretton a PS3 loaded with XBox360 code via the OtherOS option and Jack Tretton had a conniption fit when he saw it?

XBox360 uses a custom tri-core PowerPC64, similar but not identical to the Cell Broadband Engine in the PS3. From a software engineering standpoint, it wouldn't have been that difficult, or costly, to port the subset of WindowsXP PPC64 code in the XBox360 to run on the PS3. It might have been a Ballmer Special Project at Microsoft to pull a *BIG* practical joke on Jack Tretton at SCEA possibly resulting in exactly what Ballmer wanted, which was the removal of the OtherOS option in the PS3. Ballmer "pwned" Tretton? Maybe.

Did someone at SCEA finally see the YouTube video of someone running WindowsXP in an x86 emulator on the PS3?

Sony, or at least SCEA, really despises Microsoft yet the Sony Vaio product line runs Windows. Is it a case of MS is OK on Vaio, but is verboten on PS3?

Is Iran buying up PS3's to run Linux supercomputing clusters to simulate nuclear explosions?

Export restrictions would seem to rule that out but those restrictions are regularly circumvented.

Did IBM tell SCEA to stop making Linux easily available on the PS3 because it was impacting their PowerPC64/Cell Bro

Oh no

[CougMerrik]

Oh man, what will Sony do without Open Source? /s Seriously, when they had the time and were throwing everything but the kitchen sink into the PS3 (remember PS2 emulation?), it was feasible. The PS3 slim is "What can we cobble together for cheap that does what most people expect a PS3 to do?", and Linux just happens not to be a big sticking point for 99.99% of console gamers. If enough people cared, I'm sure they'd love to support it and take your money.

Graphics card and installation thereof

[tepples]

And most graphics cards today (I see one on Google Product search for $60) have S-Video.

Back in 2003, I bought a Radeon card just so I could run StepMania through S-Video, but I admit I am atypical. How many people would be inclined to buy a graphics card and pay a geek to install it rather than just buy a console? Enough to make console-style games for PC worth it?

Apple did same thing just 2 days ago

[Ilgaz]

If you look at the situation in different way, Apple did exactly the same to their own G5 users (lets forget G4-), even worse since G5 Macs are freaking Desktop computers/Workstations.

Snow Leopard _is_ possible on G5 if Apple spends considerable (even for them) amount of money, hires thousands of PowerPC developers, pay dozens of companies for code licenses... All for? Us, remaining G5 users that lots of developers are semi happy to abandon.

I hope I could express my feelings and understanding same time but let me state again. Apple, abandoned their PowerPC G5 users for the new OS. Of course, Leopard (10.5) will be supported/updated for years from now on, perhaps it could break Windows records as 10.6 is built on 10.5.

It is a game console/home entertainment device and if you look at the submitters tone, you can also guess the other reason: Lack of community feedback/thank you/positive words. Guy started with DRM, ended up with Rootkit, for God's sake...

Dear slashdot

[BitZtream]

Please change your tagline to:

News for Linux fanboys, stuff that doesn't fucking matter.

Seriously, would you get over posting every single story involving Linux as if its Earth shattering and going to change the way everyone thinks/works/lives in the next 24 fucking hours?

Heres a hint: If Linux on the PS3 was a big deal, they wouldn't have stopped it. They stopped it because all 4 people who give a fuck aren't enough to justify paying people to deal with it. You kooks have no sense of reality or cost of doing business.

Same shitty slashdotters

[Anonymous Coward]

I see retards in slashdot continue their hate for anyhthing sony related...this site is shittt...

I love trolls.

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Last I checked, they were fancy -calculators- not clocks...

A clock is a tool for measuring the duration of an action or event.
A calculator is a tool for doing arithmetic.

Which of these tasks is a computer's fundamental ability?

Just the Video Chip

[Doc Ruby]

By "most of the computing power", you must mean the RSX video chip. But the Cell CPU is fully accessible under Linux. And at 200GFLOPS, that's way more power than an x86 (or any other) PC has to offer. All under Linux, as several "cheap supercomputer" projects demonstrated.

Re:Just the Video Chip

[nobodyman]

But the Cell CPU is fully accessible under Linux

That's not entirely true. You're limited to 6 SPE's (out of seven I think). Also keep in mind that it's not just the RSX that you can't access, but the RSX memory as well -- giving you only 256MB to work with. I've heard that some hackers figured out how to access the rsx ram as swap space, but that later firmware revs closed that loophole.

I'm sure that you can still do some pretty impressive stuff, but the GP's point is still valid: Linux on PS3 is pretty gimped vs. what it could be.

Actually, you can run Linux on the Wii

[acid06]

http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Wii_Linux

Not sure about the 360, though.

Open source isn't everything.

[Zeikcied]

First, to the story poster, the Sony that made the rootkit isn't the same Sony that makes the PS3. Sony Music made the rootkit, and Sony Computer Entertainment makes the PS3. Yes, same parent company, but two very different divisions. Also, SCE doesn't make Sony computers. Just because the name Sony is common doesn't mean it's the same division, or even the same company. Each division can have vastly different philosophies. So comparing SCE to Sony Music or Sony Computers (whatever the exact company names are) makes for a flawed argument.

Anyway, to me, this story and a number of replies to it smack of open source elitism. You know that's why Windows and Mac users don't much care for us Linux users, right? Open source isn't the be all end all solution to everything. Yeah, I use Kubuntu Linux (Jaunty, to be exact), and I have since December 2006. I'm quite happy with Linux. But I know that open source can't do every single thing perfectly. I use the closed source NVIDIA graphics driver, because the open source version isn't up to par. I use Adobe Flash Player, because Gnash can't hold a candle to the official product (not yet at least; I tried Gnash on Homestarrunner.com and Weebl's Stuff, and the video was much slower than the audio, causing a huge syncing issue). At one point I used the Adobe Acrobat Reader, because the KDE PDF viewers at the time couldn't support editing PDF forms and emailing the results (functionality of a more recent version of Acrobat).

Sony removing Linux support from the PS3 Slim isn't the end of the world. You can still install Linux on the pre-Slim units. My 60 Gig PS3 (now with a new 120 Gig HD) still has the Install Other OS option. I don't use it, because it would be redundant, seeing as how my computer and PS3 are in the same room. But I still have the option. It isn't like the feature is being removed from every PS3 in existence. Besides, I don't understand why someone needs Linux on their PS3 and their PC at the same time. Sure, I can understand the curiosity factor. But I don't see what other functionality you need that the PS3 doesn't have to begin with, or that you can't easily get on your PC.

I think they shoot themselves in their foot

[g00ey]

There are ongoing rumours that the PS3 is especially difficult to develop software on since the architecture is complicated and different. Developing games are said to be extremely costly because of that and I've seen users complaining that for example the Orange box is a lot buggier on the PS3 than on the Xbox360.

If that's the case Sony should do everything they can to encourage software development on their consoles and provide tools for people so that they learn how to fully implement the hardware.

Media Display

[Anonymous Coward]

I run linux on my ps3.

I run mythtv frontend on it.

Yes the ps3 can see the upnp mythtv backend server - but as I live in an area with questionable DVB-T reception it often causes problems when viewing over upnp - but from within mythtv frontend it works very well as mythtv has a database of bits n bobs to keep things in sync and sort other things out.

Also the ps3 is very quiet (when not full of dust or playing a very intensive game) - and I dont need to turn the vol up to drown out the noisy fans (360 and most PCs).

Its just a pain to reboot and launch linux...........

You buy four things....

[XB-70]

When I was a kid, the SONY meant that the product was more expensive but also significantly superior from most competitors. Now, when I purchase a product, the price differential is to pay for four things - the letters S-O-N-Y. That's all the brand means today. You're getting what you pay for - no more, no less.

F@H != supercomputing

[Anonymous Coward]

It's cloud computing or trivially parallel computing.

Re:F@H != supercomputing

[hxnwix]

The GP: "You can get away with single precision SOMETIMES in scientific computing, but more often than not it's a deal breaker."

Me: "PS3s provide about 26% of the total x86 equivalent TFLOPS available to F@H, although PS3s represent just 9% of the total F@H CPU population."

You: "It's cloud computing or trivially parallel computing."

Irrelevant; this is a subset of supercomputing for which the PS3 is sufficiently well adapted - contrary to the GPs ill-informed rant.

The $99 fee

[tepples]

Yes, of course, Apple copied the idea of selling software in an online store from the Xbox

It's not that as much as the $99 fee for the iPhone developer certificate resembles the $99 fee for XNA Creators Club.

...but only for PS3 Fat, not the new PS3 Slim

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, if you (as I ) alread have a PSP Fat i.e not the new one, the option is still there. But this is about the new PS3 Slim which was launched yesterday.

What about business models using PS3 clusters?

[Anonymous Coward]

What I wonder is what the impact is on TerraSoft and any similar companies which develop, package and sell PS3 clusters (or software like the CodecSys CE-10 H.264 encoder).

Does Sony have a way to grandfather these these business models? Will they still produce fat PS3's for these guys?

Sony uses linux everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

I think sony is a bad example for company using linux . They use linux in virtually every product. Look the site below.

http://products.sel.sony.com/opensource/

But they don't give out any details or even any api for people to develop applications or even if they release they release only in japan and in japanese.

ex: is http://www.jp.sonystyle.com/Taiken/Original/Applicast/download.html

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why will u run Linux on PS3, if you are not part of university computing or research?
Doesn't make sense for sony to continue linux on PS3...

OP sounds like a cunt... still bitching about rootkit...
Maybe shitbox 4*360 (4x RROD guaranteed) has an inbuilt option to install linux?? No??

stupid fuck..
DE

I have several problems with this

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Sony did not specifically remove Linux support from the PS3--they removed the ability to install any OS on it. It was not some sort of attempt to kill open source.

2. If OS installs on the PS3 was the only FOSS-friendly feature Sony had, then they did not just abandon open source. That only means the dying have died, and you have to try to be upset about that.

3. Um, yes, Chrome being preinstalled is rather significant. You might try to disregard Chrome because few use it, but this is still a good thing for open source. The majority of IE users are using it because as far as they know it's the only browser in existence and Bill Gates keeps the Internet in his backyard. Now, some segment of the market will be using Chrome. Instead of IE. See, this is the part where Chrome gets all those users and becomes important, and hopefully scares the pants off Microsoft.

Cheer up, dude. Things are better than they seem.

Excuse_me

[Anonymous Coward]

( SONY == Microsoft ) == GOOGLE

SONY is a threat to Electronics !!!

Microsoft is a threat to Software !!!

Google is a threat to the Internet !!!

The above statements true for their business strategy according to my belief.