Linux, PS3 and DC?

[BobDaMenkey]

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4621

Sony has said in the past that the PlayStation 3 would render traditional PCs useless given its powerful processing platform and Linux-based operating system. "We believe that the PS3 will be the place where our users play games, watch films, browse the Web, and use other [home] computer functions. The PlayStation 3 is a computer. We do not need the PC," said Sony's Phil Harrision in late May.

It appears that Harrison's dream is coming true. The PS3 hasn't even been released yet, but Colorado-based Terra Soft has announced a 3rd-party Linux-based operating system for the console. Yellow Dog Linux v5.0 fully supports the PlayStation 3 platform, is built on Fedora Core 5.0 and brings the following to the table:
* kernel 2.6.16
* gcc 4.1.1 and glibc 2.4
* Cell SDK 1.1
* OpenOffice.org 2.0.2
* FireFox 1.5.0 and Thunderbird 1.5.0
* Nautilus 2.14
* Suite of Personal Accessories, Development Tools; Sound & Video, Internet, and
* Networking applications

The operating system will come with an easy to use installer to make installation a breeze. For those that are little more adventurous, a more advanced installer will be available giving users access to over 1,500 packages. According to Terra Soft, Yellow Dog Linux v5.0 is fully sanctioned by SCEI and incorporates code and input from Sony, Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Sony Group, and Fedora.

With this announcement, it makes more sense for buyers to rush for the high-end version of the PS3. That version?s a 60GB hard drive, wireless adapter and media reader would make the most of using the PS3 as a PC replacement.

This looks promising. I know F@H had some news about working with Sony to harness the power of the Cell for distributed computing. Of course we're all going to have to wait to see just how well it'll pan out, but this looks promising. If the cell performance is anything like the new GPU clients for F@H this means ALOT more science can be done in the same ammount of time. That's great news no matter what you're crunching on.

 

[GLeeM]

Thanks for the information!

 

[Silverthorne]

I have Xebian (aka Ed's Debian) on my Xbox right now, unfortunately I don't know enough about it to try and setup any DC clients.

 

[BobDaMenkey]

Setting up F@H should be really easy if the distro will support it.

Just go here : http://folding.stanford.edu/download.html

Download the commandline client for Linux. Either the 5.02 or 5.04 should work perfectly fine.

In the commandline navigate to the directory that you saved it to (dir and cd [destination] to get around if you haven't done it before).

Type or copy/paste chmod +x FAH5.0x-Linux.exe (replace 5.0x with 5.02 or 5.04 depending on which client you used)

If this doesn't return any sort of error then type: ./FAH5.0x-Linux.exe

If it does, I don't believe you'll be able to run F@H on the xbox.

From that point, you'll want to enter your username, your team number (198), and adjust any things. You will NOT want to download big units, as they will be far too much for the ole Xbox with 64mb of RAM to handle.