Developing On the PS3 Under Fedora 122
An anonymous reader writes to point out the first in a series of articles from a while back about using the Playstation 3 as a development environment under Fedora. Here are the second and third parts of the series. Quoting:
"Early on, it was a bit of a challenge to get Linux natively installed on the PS3. Time has passed, and a great deal has changed. Fedora 7 installs on the PS3 out of the box, with the most challenging installation steps eliminated. This article introduces the basic configuration knobs and widgets specific to the PS3 running Linux, shows you how to use them effectively, and suggests the kind of trickery that gets improved performance."
How oddly timely (Score:3, Interesting)
I just finally bought a PS3 about a week ago and was getting ready to install Linux on it. I wish we could access the GPU but I understand why Sony doesn't want that. I think I found my project for the weekend.
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You should watch this [youtube.com] and save yourself some time. There is no real point in doing it except to do it, in which case you might as well just watch somebody else.
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Oh I've already seen the (more than one) videos of Linux on the PS3. I want to play around with some Cell coding; that's the only reason TO do it. The PS3 has a web browser already so installing Linux to just a somewhat functional web appliance is probably a waste of time.
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Firefox 3 under Linux on the PS3 is a better web browser than Netfront under GameOS.
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Meh, if I want to browse the web in front of my TV I have a laptop for that. The built in browser is more than good enough for the occasional need. That being said of course if I'm booted into Linux I'll be using the browser for various things; viewing and downloading code comes to mind.
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I have my PS3 on a computer desk with a 19inch HD LCD, so it's more like a regular PC desktop setup, keyboard tray, printer and everything.
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I got mine primary for movies and games, and it sits in my living room connected to my HDTV.
Re:How oddly timely (Score:4, Interesting)
I want to play around with some Cell coding;
A few months ago, i was part of a project writing a demo app for PS3... We wrote some cell-code to scale webcam images. The app is written in C, the project website can be found here: http://cellproject.kjeldelaey.be/documentatie/html/annotated.html [kjeldelaey.be] The site is in dutch, but the code is documented in english.
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Thank you! I'll surely check that out.
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Absolutely. Linux on the PS3 is for Cell programming.
An interesting video but ... (Score:5, Insightful)
... the article specifically states that running Linux on the PS3 is now far easier. I don't know if that is true but the article states that many of the time-consuming steps are no longer required. The PS3 is a very cheap development environment if your target platform is the CELL processor and that must be a reason for doing it if you are going to be programming one of those systems. There is no reason to assume that everyone has the same motivation for running it.
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Why would your target platform be the cell processor? The only people who use them are PS3 and Toshiba Qosmio owners. If you're writing PS3 apps on Linux, it's doubtful they will ever see much use. Likewise, the cell "helper" processor in the Qosmio isn't going to see a lot of use either, it's just there to speed up HD processing. And if you plan on writing code to be run on Roadrunner, I don't think the PS3 is a good development environment for that.
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That's nice that you don't think it's good for that. But there are plenty of things that people could use programming on Linux on the PS3 for. They could use it to familiarize themselves with writing to the SPEs. They could use it to learn about multithreading. It's an amazing learning resource. And if you happen to work in a scientific lab environment, it's a very cheap workhorse. So just because you don't think it's good for anything does
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CBEs or successors will probably get popular in HPC.
The Barcelona Supercomuting Center, for instance, has a site on Linux on Cell BE-based Systems: http://www.bsc.es/plantillaG.php?cat_id=96 [www.bsc.es]
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Re:An interesting video but ... (Score:5, Informative)
A two processor Xeon 3.0 ghz quad core system would have an xhpl-relevant Rpeak of about 96 Gflops. Two cell processors (of the Poer8XCelli varaint, not the ones in PS3) has an Rpeak of 200 Gigaflops. The power consumption of those are about even. So the processor achieves over twice the aggregate performance within a comparable power envelope. *THAT* is why it's interesting.
See the #1 Top500 system. Not significantly more power usage than Intel systems, but blows the Intel ones out of the water.
The thing about code is, a Cell system can run the same C code other platforms can. Not blazingly fast, mind you, but it isn't like you *must* retool everything. In order to get the 2x boosts in certain code loops, yes, you would have to, but a lot of that is done already.
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The PowerXCell 8i version of the Cell processor can do 102 GFLOPS double precision. However, the PS3 Cell chip only supports single precision natively.
the Cell chip in the PS3 does has a peak of around 200 GigaFLOPs single precision and 20 GigaFLOPs double precision [engadget.com]
Precisely what I said. (Score:2)
I said two Power8XCell processers can do 200 gflops double precision, therefore one can do about 100.
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The ps3 has 8 cores. It's cheap. Something, e.g., with Sun's UtraSparc T2 costs over US$ 14,000.
http://www.sun.com/servers/coolthreads/t5140/ [sun.com]
The ps3 is multicore for the masses. They're here.
This is, like, having an Apple ][ in 1977 :-).
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And a non-coder slightly nerdy person could use it (in my case Linux on the PS2) to learn about this Linux thing they've seen mention of on Slashdot.
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Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Aah...that explains why there is only one +5 Insightful comment.
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.
explain to me why you are spending time in an environment that doesn't give you full access to the graphics sub-system - and may have other significant constraints.
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explain to me why you are spending time in an environment that doesn't give you full access to the graphics sub-system -
Because you aren't doing graphics?
and may have other significant constraints.
and could also come to life and kill you!
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I disagree - for the average geek the DOING of something is an end in itself.
Geeks are the pioneers of today, we do stuff because it is there to do.
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The point is it adds functionality to a device that already has plenty. Even if it doesn't have 3D hardware access it's still capable of doing non-3D development. There's nothing stopping someone from using Linux on the PS3 and becoming a part of the Nethack Devteam, or writing patches to Claws-Mail or something.
I've watched video under Linux on the PS3, it may not be good enough for 1080p but for the average non-HD video it should work fine. I've watched plenty of youtube on it. Besides, there's always
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Kai Staats, main developer for Yellow Dog Linux, from Terra Soft (the firm Sony contracted), says "they're working hard" to [convince? Sony? NVIDIA?] to let Linux access the GPU.
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=lSP9b4Qcu4M [youtube.com]
Maybe this will change if the community puts enough pressure on Sony and NVIDIA.
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The thing is if sony lets linux apps access the GPU they will have essentially let people sell games for the PS3 without giving sony a cut.
Since afaict sony takes a loss on the PS3 itself and tries to make up for that with thier cuts of game revenue I don't see them allowing linux based competition to liensed games anytime soon.
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Anyway, what's good enough for 1080p, 1080i? Only Blu-Ray.
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The video is rather lame, since it only states in rather verbose terms that the CELL isn't a x86 CPU and that you don't have access to the GPU, which we already knew anyway. It would be much more interesting to know what the PS3 Linux actually can do instead of knowing what it can't do (i.e. does mplayer work, is CELL any good for video encoding right know, how fast is the framebuffer when watching video, how fast is Dosbox or other emulation, etc.).
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mplayer works, at least for the mp4 web video. I don't know of any video encoding that uses the spe's. Dosbox is fast enough to play SSI's Dungeon Hack full speed. QEMU+Win95 is fast enough to play Diablo.
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That video features an inordinate amount of stupidity. I mean the guy installs Linux on a PS3 and then tries to run high-end games inside of that. Then he complains that Wine doesn't run on it.
Reminds me of idiots buying PlayStation games and then returning to the store a day later all upset because they couldn't figure out how to insert the CD in their Nintendos.
Hello? Every hear of PS3 games? You know, those that don't require an extra OS to run?
Also, he complains about screen resolution. I've tried
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Not even Nethack?
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Empathize with people who are too stupid to do a modicum of research before trying something? Why yes, I do believe I have a problem doing that. Hell, a 5 minute web browsing session would tell you that the PS3 has a Cell processor, which is a PowerPC core. A few more minutes, and you'd realize Wine isn't made for PowerPC's. Game over there. But hey, go ahead and make excuses for someone saying "I'm a fucking retard, and this sucks because the grill I just bought doesn't make my potato salad cold!".
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novice end users are going to play games in GameOS, except maybe games through SDLmame or emulators like Stella, or VICE.
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That's what comes from letting a PC gamer near Linux, all he knows is games so that's what he'll try to run. If he wanted Quake, GameOS is what he should have been using to play the PS2/PS3 Quake games, unless he wants to run source ports of Quake 1 or Quake II. I think there's people who ran Starcraft under win95/win98 via QEMU.
Although Youtube doesn't work directly in Firefox on the PS3, that's a limitation of gnash, you can view youtube video. All you need is a Firefox plugin or command line tools li
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That video is full of misleading information. First of all, to complain about the video quality and talk about "interlacing" ? LOLWUT??? Of course it's gonna look garbage if you're using it on some SD set. 1080p, looks fine. Secondly, I installed Ubuntu on my PS3 and had no problem watching Youtubes - I guess YDL has some issues, but that doesn't make it a problem with /Linux/. And of course Wine won't work - that he even tried indicates some fundamental misunderstanding of How Things Work.
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I sincerely hope you don't sympathise with Sony. ;)
Re:How oddly timely (Score:5, Informative)
I wish we could access the GPU but I understand why Sony doesn't want that.
Well, I wish somebody would explain it to me. I presume the answer has something to do with piracy, but I don't see how that has a damn thing to do with access to the graphics chip under Linux. I mean, if they want to prevent you booting disks that haven't been officially signed, then that's fair enough (just about), but what does limiting the access to the GPU achieve?
This whole business of running Linux is basically just a tax dodge anyhow - because, if it didn't run Linux, the EU would have classified it as a game, rather than a computer, and slapped a higher import duty on it.
The EU should have stood firm and said "if you want to claim it's a computer, then users should be able to program the facilities of the *whole* computer".
How happy would you be if you bought a new PC, only to find out that, no, you can't access the GPU, etc from your own programs?
Re:How oddly timely (Score:5, Informative)
I wish we could access the GPU but I understand why Sony doesn't want that.
Well, I wish somebody would explain it to me. I presume the answer has something to do with piracy, but I don't see how that has a damn thing to do with access to the graphics chip under Linux.
Well, I'm just guessing, but this is my theory.
You can't just write games for consoles, you need to be a registered developer, and have a business relationship with the manufacturer, Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft. This has two goals, first, the manufacturer gets a cut out of your profits, second, the manufacturer gets to decide what runs on the console, so there aren't any subpar titles that give it a bad name.
If Linux could access the GPU, we'd have lots of nifty games ported to the PS3 in no time (Sauerbraten, Nexuiz, Alien Arena, etc. etc.), and later on developers might write games specifically for the PS3/Linux, just to get around the cost of developing using the 'normal' procedure for consoles. Sony, according to this theory, wants to avoid such things, for the reasons I said before: no more guaranteed profit per game played on their consoles, and no control over what games are played on them either.
I think it's crappy reasoning, personally.
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"the manufacturer gets a cut out of your profits"
They need this in order to be able to subsidize the console. The solution to this closed ecosystem where console makers can dictate which publishers enter the market is to prevent the subsidies. If you prevent the subsidies, there is little to no reason to limit what the end user can do with the device or who can program for it.
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Actually, you can develop games for the xbox360 relatively cheap. For 99 bucks, they will give you the license. The XNA development kit is free for anyone (at least the express version, which is partially stripped down).
Last I knew, MS was giving a one year membership license to XNA away for free on their dreamspark [msdn.com] site for students. They were also giving away the XNA 2.0 development kit (full version). It's worth at least checking out if you have an interest in console development (even if it's the xbox36
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How happy would you be if you bought a new PC, only to find out that, no, you can't access the GPU, etc from your own programs?
Depends. If it were heavily subsidised then I might accept it. Probably not though, which is why I don't own a console.
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Just take a look at the sheer size of the linux PC-gaming library for an example of what Sony has to fear.
It's not quite about piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, it's not quite about piracy. It's about the fact that their whole business model is, well, sorta like the Gillette model: give the razor for almost free, make them pay through the nose for blades. Or, in Sony's case: massively subsidize the console itself, but control the games publishing and make them pay extra for the games.
It's not just Sony that has this model, btw. HP does the same with printers and ink, to the extent that for some it's cheaper to just chuck the old printer in the bin and buy a new one (which includes ink), than to buy a new ink cartridge. It's done by telcos, who give you a phone for 1 Euro, but saddle you with a long term contract as their real revenue. Etc, etc, etc.
So the last thing Sony wants is that someone bypasses them and publishes their own games for the PS3, say, as Linux games. And don't think as much "homebrew" (they probably couldn't care less if you make your own buggy tetris clone for it), think some big publisher getting that idea. Like, say, EA realizing that they can bypass and undercut Sony for their sports games.
And it's easier to play the piracy card there and forbid it completely from the start, than to go to court later and claim "but they need our permission to make games for our machine!" There are already precedents that you can't outright forbid that. Starting with the famous IBM case which created the software industry in the first place. Turned out that IBM couldn't forbid you to make software for their machines. Atari tried the same stunt and lost too. In fact, nobody won that kind of a case yet, and I'm not sure Sony wants to try to be the first.
AFAIK, that tax loophole was removed _years_ ago. So, nope.
AFAIK, they did, back in the PS2 times. Sorta. They essentially ruled that it's a game console anyway.
Well, just to play the devil's advocate, then fucking buy a computer. Of course, then you won't have Sony subsidizing half the cost of it, and they can't impose any restriction on you.
Same as with cell phones, printers, etc. If you don't want to be bound by some long term contract, buy your own phone. If you don't want to be gouged for ink, buy a Cannon. Etc. It's that simple. If you decided to take the subsidy, then have the decency to also accept your own part of the contract too.
It's kinda silly to essentially demand that a company subsidizes anything for you, but is forbidden to get anything in return. If they don't get anything out of that deal, why would they? No, you don't have some sacred right that someone else buys you a lollipop.
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Very well put. Mod parent up.
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So then skip the subsidy. Just like carrier-unlocked cell phones. If you want the PS3 with GPU available in Linux, you pay a $300 premium on top of original console cost. This allows Sony to recoup costs in terms of more expensive hardware, and mostly prevents the devs skipping over to PS3/Linux since they'll want to target the everyday console.
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Wrong. Because that tax that you are referring to hasn't existed for years. It got revoked before even Linux on the PS2 was released. It was Yabasic on the PS2 that was an attempt to doge it, not Linux on the PS2 or PS3.
Simple (Score:2)
Because free 3D accellerated games on Linux would cut into their royalties. I didn't say I liked it, I just said I understood their reason.
Very Happy! (Score:2)
As many others have explained, Sony sells the PS3 as a loss leader and makes their profit through game licensing/sales. Without the game profits, they couldn't afford to sell the PS3 at its current cost. If you absolutely need access to the GPU, then register as a PS3 developer.
The more important question for the general PS3 consumer is - How happy would you be if you could save $
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I wish we could access the GPU but I understand why Sony doesn't want that.
Well, I wish somebody would explain it to me. I presume the answer has something to do with piracy, but I don't see how that has a damn thing to do with access to the graphics chip under Linux. I mean, if they want to prevent you booting disks that haven't been officially signed, then that's fair enough (just about), but what does limiting the access to the GPU achieve?
The GPU is a NVIDIA chip. Linux drivers from NVIDIA are closed-source, and I haven't heard of any low-level hardware documentation being handed out to people looking to write open source alternatives. How would people program the GPU under PS3 Linux without that documentation?
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It probably isn't Sony, but Nvidia. Third party board manufacturers do get access to the Nvidia hardware specifications in order to write drivers for a fee, so I would guess that making developers pay for access to the hardware specifications helps to pay for the cost of support staff. The
Surely, nvidia could create blob drivers for the PS3, as they do for PC's?
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You do? Wow. I always suspected that somebody must. And it's you! Share, please. :)
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Yeah, trying out all the video modes to see which one works best for ones screen is a must. I've got a 1440x900 LCD TV, for me using VESA WXGA over HDMI, which is 1280x768 on the PS3 which my TV scales slightly works best.
big blue trying to hack their own cpu :) (Score:3, Interesting)
Nice to find a solution to find a cheap hack to use the Cell on an IBM website. Sometimes you really wonder if they have seen the light :)
I wonder if these machines would make an excellent slim desktop pc to compete with eee desktop and others. But I guess reselling the ps3 with linux preinstalled will be fought by Sony.
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The only reason Sony let this happen was to try to have the platform classified as a 'computer' in the EU - because of tax.
Sony tries so hard to lock up its platform that their offerings were laughable...
http://www.edge-online.com/news/kutaragi-details-ps3-computer-claim [edge-online.com]
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Re:big blue trying to hack their own cpu :) (Score:4, Informative)
Again, the tax myth. The tax doesn't exist, hasn't existed since before Linux on the PS2 was released. It was Yabasic that was an attempt to dodge the tax, not Linux.
By the way, you CAN install a bigger HD in the PS3, Sony tells you how in the manual.
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It's not a loss factor for Sony, a Linux equipped PS3 still plays PS3 games, it's a dual boot thing. As for the HD, you could install Linux on larger ATA drives too in the PS2 too, though those could only be used under Linux. Sony's long been a supporter of hobbyist development...to a certain extent, Yaroze for PS1 ($800), the Linux kit for PS2 ($199), and now Linux on the PS3 (free). It also helps create new PSfoo programmers.
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Actually it sounds more like they don't know how to develop for it, which is why we see these regular slashvertisements from "anonymous readers" that point to the IBM developerworks site. They're trying to enlist /.'s population as free rentacoders.
It all sounds a bit Itanic to me.
No... (Score:3, Insightful)
If they didn't know how to develop for it, they wouldn't have gotten to #1 supercomputing slot. IBM knows how.
Now, with this, it's a move to drum up interest in the architecture. IBM has server-class systems with enterprise support for CBE systems (QS22 being the current generation). However, drumming up general community interest in Cell benefits them in many ways.
Businesses contemplating Cell can have developers evaluate the architecture on the cheap. They won't be able to have a high speed interconne
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I don't have a PS3, but if memory serves it has USB ports, so you can plug in a keyboard and mouse. At least the PS2 did have USB ports, and I don't see a reason the PS3 would remove them...
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The PS3 has several usb ports so you can use a USB keyboard and mouse if you want. You have to buy them seperately of course though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS3#Graphical_user_interface/ [wikipedia.org]
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Just to let everyone know one downside to buying a PS3 from Terrasoft. The PS3's sold by Terrasoft are 40GB models with bigger HD's installed. So they don't have any PS2 backwards compatibility. If you're just doing dev it's no big deal, of course.
Finally! (Score:5, Funny)
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Sorry, you are late... it came when Linux got running on XBOX (1). See you on the next market area, because Servers, Desktops, WLAN's, Routers (networking) and Consoles "Year of the Linux on X" has already gone on those markets... Mayby next one is "Year of the Linux on Cars" or "Year of the Linux on Dildo"...
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Sorry, you are late, it came when Linux was running on the PS2.
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Sorry, I were not late, I was just wrong on timeline;-)
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You got the hypervisor part right.
The performance part I think you pulled it out of your ass.
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Someone tell me... (Score:1)
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Because that cheap ebay laptop can't play Oblivion. Neither can it play PS2 games at full speed. In fact, it might have problems with PS1 games.
The Linux functionality of the PS3 is in addition to all the other things it does, more features, more bang for the buck.
For instance, suppose a family has a PC, a lot of families have only one. Suppose they get a PS3, then they can install Linux on it and have two machines that can read e-mail. That means if the PC is occupied and someone needs to read/write a d
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Because you're cheap laptop you bought on eBay does not have a high-end multicore chip like Cell
nothingtoseeheremovealong (Score:5, Informative)
The 3-part article tells very little about PS3-specific hacks. Basically, the author was telling you how to strip the Fedora system so that it could run on the resource-limited hardware without being too slow. This includes stopping unecessary daemons, ditch GNOME for twm, and running the X server on another box (or getting rid of X altogether).
This also apply to everything that Fedora can run on.
I fail to see how this is related to ``developing on the PS3 under Fedora''. The article didn't say much about development. If by ``developing'' you mean compiling your code in Fedora running inside a PS3 (which is under a virtualized environment) may be you have some points. But this is not developing for the PS3 platform. This is developing for a virtualized Linux platform.
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For that matter, the PS3 comes standard with a 4200 RPM drive, which means it's not a particularly enticing Linux environment to develop in no matter which distro you use.
Nonetheless, even though it has a slow hard drive and only 256 Megs of RAM, there are some uses for Linux on the PS3. I live in a small valley where radio reception is virtually nil. I use my PS3 to play Shoutcast streams on my stereo when I'm not watching a movie on it.
My preferred usage would be to run Pandora using the built-in browser
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That's funny because the standard memory configuration for many early WinXP boxes was 256MB. Bought a laptop in 2003 whose standard config had 256MB with WinXP, Gateway 400SP plus.
IBM would like.. (Score:2)
For people to use it to develop an understanding that makes you comfortable about recommending purchase of QS blade servers, which have none of those limitations of the PS3.
Howerver, I still want a good PS3 Myth frontend. I already have one that is on an AMD PC, but I would love to have one fewer device in the mix.
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All you have to do, if you're really worried about that 256 RAM is:
1) Play some ps3 games, like the almost photo-realistic Gran Tourismo, to be convinced that simple explanations here do not suffice
2) Use a more optimized windows manager that's still beautiful, like Enlightenment.
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I guess I didn't make myself clear. It's not a Linux implementation issue.
Even though there's no Linux instance running and all that's running is the native PS3 OS, a browser, a flash interpreter and Pandora's flash application, 256 Meg is not enough. Perhaps it's a bug in Pandora or perhaps 256 meg really isn't enough anymore.
I know it sounds absurd but there it is.
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So, you're saying we're ot gonna run huge data centers from the PS3s at home - because of the disks?
You're just saying it for the lulz, right? :-)
Re: Nothing to see here move along (Score:1, Informative)
The PS3 platform *is* a virtualized platform. Linux is as close to the metal as Sony's own OS. So if you start kernel hacking you're closer to the metal than any PS3 game ever gets.
The main point of programming PS3 Linux is that you get to play with 6 SPUs.
There is no point in even installing Linux on a PS3 if you're *not* going to be doing this, hence the article is totally related to development on PS3. It just doesn't go very far.
Out of date (Score:3, Informative)
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See my other post - you should probably be using the Yellow Dog Linux, as Sony payed Terra Soft to port the thing to PS3.
http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/ydl/ [terrasoftsolutions.com]
No tweaking necessary, and all the development tools you need, and updated.
why? (Score:1)
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Why? Because of the Cell chip.
If you still don't understand why, than you're not the kind of person who should buy a ps3 for Linux.
Yellow Dog Linux for the PS3 (Score:5, Interesting)
Sony has payed the Yellow Dog Linux guys to port Linux to the PS3, so it's probably more optimized for it than Fedora (even though it's based on Fedora), for instance, by using the Enlightenment window manager.
http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/ydl/ [terrasoftsolutions.com]
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Yellow Dog, in my experience, is horrendously slow on the PS3. Fedora 8 on the other hand runs like silk.
Not to mention that Yellow Dog has long, closed development cycles. Only the Cell SDK 2.1 was supported for the longest time. While Fedora supported 3.0 soon after the new SDK's launch.
Yellow Dog also had an issue for quite awhile which did not allow system restarts. This is particularly annoying when you are SSH'd in from across town and realize that both of your PS3's now require a 120 reset.
Interesting, also runs on apple hardware (Score:1)
Re:In other news: PS3 is slow as hell (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is defining "comfortably". Some dev used to running Eclipse, compiling code, running Firefox, and Thunderbird under a full KDE/Gnome desktop all the time might have a different definition. I've ran X on the PS2. X on the PS3 runs better, it runs fine.
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Do you need 3D to run Abiword? No. Do you need 3D for a mail client? No. Do emacs or vim need 3D? No.
Most applications are still 2D.