Running Linux on the

Running Linux on the

PlayStation 3

• Released November 2006

• Successor to the highly popular PlayStation 2

• Arguably one of the most powerful Gen.7 gaming consoles on the market

• Sales as of 1/08: 3.25M (USA), 10.49M (worldwide)

PS3 Hardware

• CPU: Cell Broadband Engine (IBM POWER-based) @ 3.2 GHz, 7 SPE cores (6 user-accessible)

• Graphics: NVIDIA G70 (NV47)-based “RSX” engine, 550 MHz.

• RAM: 256 MB main, 256 MB graphics

More hardware

• Disk: 20-80 GB (3.5” SATA)

• Optical disk: BD-ROM (BluRay); can also read DVD/DVD+/-R/CD.

• Bluetooth 2.0

• 802.11b/g WiFi (not all models)

• USB 2.0 (2-4 ports)

• HDMI, component, composite video

Performance

• Total floating point: 2 TFLOPS

• CPU only: 204 GFLOPS single precision float, 15 GFLOPS double precision float

Standards Based!

• HD is standard SATA, easily user upgradable

• Bluetooth 2.0 - headsets, keyboards/mice

• USB 2.0 - webcams, keyboards/mice

Linux on the PS3

• “It was fully intended that you, a PS3 owner, could play games, watch movies, view photos, listen to music, and run a full-featured Linux operating system that transforms your PS3 into a home computer."

• Was to be pre-installed with Linux

Linux on the PS3

• Officially supported as of kernel 2.6.21

• Yellow Dog 5.0 - official PS3 distro

• PSUbuntu

• Fedora

• others...

What You’ll Need

• PS3 (duh)

• TV or monitor (HDMI, DVI work. For HDMI/DVI, must support HDCP.)

• USB memory stick

• Linux distro burned to CD

• Optional: larger USB stick or hard drive (if you want to back up your PS3)

How to install Linux

• (Optional) Back up your PS3

• Partition it (dual boot or single boot)

• (Optional) Restore your PS3 backup

• Boot from USB stick containing OTHEROS.BLD file

• Install Linux as per your distro’s installer

It’s Demo Time!It’s Demo Time!

So why would you want to do

this?

So why would you want to do

this?

A supercomputer in your living room

or... a superCLUSTER in your living room!!!

Who’s using these?

• Astrophysicist Dr. Gaurav Khanna replaced time used on supercomputers with a cluster of eight PlayStation 3s.

• http://tinyurl.com/28wv44

Who’s using these?

• Computational Biochemistry and Biophysics lab, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, “PS3GRID” for collaborative computing based on the CellMD software, the first one designed specifically for the Cell processor.

• http://www.ps3grid.net/

Folding@Home

• Distributed Computing to calculate protein folding

• Over 1 PFLOPS from PS3 owners alone

• Compare that to BlueGene/L @ 280.6 TFLOPS

• Takes my PS3 about 3 hoursTakes my desktop over 1 day

PS3 Homebrew

• Make your own games

• Access to (almost) all PS3 hardware

• Networking

• Controllers

• Audio

• Graphics (sorta)

Caveats

• No access to graphics

• Everything runs in a hypervisor

• There is experimental graphics access; don’t upgrade past firmware 2.10

LINKSLINKS

For More Information

• Wikipedia has great entries on:

• PlayStation 3

• PlayStation 3 hardware

• Cell (microprocessor)

• RSX ‘Reality Synthesizer’

• Linux for PlayStation 3

PS3 Linux Distributions

• http://psubuntu.com/

• http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/ydl/

• Fedora Core 5 on PS3:http://tinyurl.com/yknkfp

Programming the Cell

• Georgia Tech workshop (with slides and video): http://tinyurl.com/2wkllf

• More links on Cell and PS3 Linux entries at Wikipedia

• http://tinyurl.com/23auvg

• http://tinyurl.com/qvn4h

The EndThe End