
Say good-bye to Linux on the PS3 - pavel
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10471356-17.html
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sketerpot
The really galling thing is how they spin this as a feature, using the most
convoluted corporate doublespeak I've seen in a while. The phrase "Don't piss
on me and tell me it's raining" comes to mind.

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jmount
I thought the "Linux on PS3" was just a scam Sony pursued to avoid a video
game tax treatment in the EU. If I remember right they got sued about that
(that the EU wanted to tax the PS3 as a video game) but I forget what came of
that.

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bitwize
That was Yabasic on the PS2. And they didn't get away with it.

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tibbon
One of my roommates constantly uses Linux on the PS3 as his justification for
why the PS3 is better than the Xbox (oddly he just says this, and hasn't
actually loaded Linux on it from what I can tell).

Sony seems to be notorious for what they allow as features on their system.
SACD optical out playing, PS2 support and Linux support seem to flip back and
forth between hardware and software versions.

~~~
nkassis
that's because, there no real difference (experience wise) and in the end it's
decided on stupid things like this. There isn't much competition in the
console space so they all pretty much do the same thing.

The only real advantage sony has is the nice bluray player but with the price
of bluray players right now, it's a very moot point now.

I like the talk about the (now defunct :() Linux feature just cause it lets me
call my xbox owning friends Microsoft groupies ;p

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jorgecastillo
Sony is just buying time. Sooner or later someone is going to hack the PS3 and
users will be able to install whatever they want.

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sp332
One of the Wii hackers who gave a presentation at the 25th Chaos Communication
Congress in Berlin said that the only reason the PS3 hadn't been completely
hacked yet is that you could already do most of what the hackers and
homebrewers wanted, without modchips or removing the hypervisor.
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/55502932@N00/4314288066/sizes/o...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/55502932@N00/4314288066/sizes/o/)
Now that you can't boot other OS's, the PS3 hacks are only going to get more
intense.

~~~
TeHCrAzY
Interesting. My assumption was mostly that piracy motivated the hacks, and
running "homebrew" was a minor aside. This was mostly the case with the PSP
custom firmware scene, at the very least.

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sp332
Homebrewers and pirates are surprisingly distinct groups. A couple small
examples: <http://www.wiibrew.org/wiki/Team_Twiizers#Philosophy> and
<http://www.wiibrew.org/wiki/WarezInstaller/information>

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sophacles
Well this is just absurd. I bought my PS3 in a large part to support this
open(ish) hardware notion amongst console makers. What a lot of good that did.

~~~
rbanffy
So... What will you do? Buy an Xbox 360? ;-)

It's not like you have a whole lot of choice...

And yes, it sucks.

I would like an inexpensive non-x86 desktop. A Cell-based box would be
interesting, as would be a SPARC or a many-core ARM thingie. I find this
x86-only world boring.

~~~
sophacles
Nah, ill just buy a media center pc and put boxee or something on it. I don't
play a lot of games, in fact, one of the motivators for buying the PS3 was to
see if I would be interested in more gaming on newer systems. Turns out I'm
still not much of a gamer.

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kevingadd
This appears to be in response to the announcements of PS3 hypervisor exploits
that rely on the use of OtherOS (specifically, Linux), since in the past Sony
has insisted that they had no plans to ever deprecate Linux support, let alone
force it in this manner:

[http://lists.ozlabs.org/pipermail/cbe-oss-
dev/2009-August/00...](http://lists.ozlabs.org/pipermail/cbe-oss-
dev/2009-August/006965.html)

Allowing people to opt out of the firmware update isn't as nice as it sounds,
since you can't have a damaged PS3 serviced without getting it updated to the
latest firmware. A few PS3 devs I follow on twitter have already discussed
buying extra 'fat' PS3s to use as replacements in case their current ones die.

Kind of a short-sighted decision, since a lot of people who do development on
PS3 software use this feature - getting a real devkit for use at home isn't
particularly easy, and PS3 linux lets you do a lot of Cell hacking on
inexpensive hardware.

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rbanffy
> PS3 linux lets you do a lot of Cell hacking on inexpensive hardware.

This benefits mostly IBM, who sells Cell-based blade servers. Sony sells PS3
consoles at a loss. Any use that does not include buying a couple games means
a bad quarterly report.

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hga
Are they still selling them at a loss?

That's how it starts out, before serious cost reduction.

Also, hasn't IBM capped the Cell line?

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sgoraya
Yes, still at a loss from the what I last read over at gamasutra and game
developer. SONY anticipated turning a profit with the release of the PS3 slim
but that apparently did not pan out.

~~~
rbanffy
The Slim has no Linux capability and allowing Linux on older PS3's holds no
benefit for Sony. It made a little sense in the beginning, teaching some Cell
skills to developers who could get interested into developing for the machine,
but none now (or they would allow it on the slim). What makes sense is the
idea Sony fears exploits coming from the Linux side could compromise the
signing keys and allow bootleg/homebrew software to run on the consoles.

