help installing 10.10 on ps3

[darckhart]

i'm having trouble installing the latest ubuntu v10.10 on my ps3 (FW v3.15). i had no trouble installing YDL v6.2 long ago, but since i'm more familiar with ubuntu, i wanted to give that a try. i am using the "alternate version" of the ppc+ps3 iso.

the system gets to the kboot prompt fine, then i press enter, a few lines of something with usb stuff scroll by, then it hangs at this point:

ps3-ehci-driver sb_05: usb bus 1 deregistered

upon where my keybd (ms ergonomic 4000) in port 1 gets turned off. disconnect and replugging keybd does nothing. i'm forced to hard shutdown with the back switch, then hold power button 5 sec to get back into ps3 os.

has anyone gotten this to work? i'm dl the "desktop" version currently to give that a try but i'm not sure how that will go.

edit: ok i got the same error. and here's a pic:
http://i56.tinypic.com/2vxnjnd.jpg

[cowman]

Hi, saw this post and I'm having exactly the same problem/error.

Has anyone come up with fix yet?

[zoggnoff]

Same exact problem. I use a Logitech usb keyboard. Not sure why this does not install.

[zoggnoff]

it is definitely not the image (verified md5sum) and it is not the media. first, I burned a cheap Sony CD-R. second, I tried a Taiyo Yuden DVD-R with slow speed and verification; same result.

all I can think is the newer Ubuntu must not be compatible with the original large-bodied Forty-Gig Playstation3s or the otheros.bld it uses isn't compatible. Either way, I am now downloading Desktop PPC PS3 version 9.10 just for the hell of it.

I might, while i'm waiting, download and burn YDL's otheros.bld to quench my curiousness. let yall know when i got results. cheers

update: YDL's otheros.bld grafting with 10.10 Ubuntu Alternate is a no-go for reentry, i repeat, a no-go for reentry. seriously, it was unsuccessful and I am 'now' burning 9.10 Ubuntu Desktop PPC PS3.

update 2: I got by the deregistered thing using downloaded and burned version of 9.10 Desktop PPC PS3 installation CD therefore I decided to download 10.10 Desktop PPC PS3 to give it a try because maybe i will have more luck than the OP and the 9.10 Desktop went well. i will keep you posted

final update: Success! Desktop PPC PS3 9.10 did install. HOWEVER, there are a few caveats; DO NOT LET THE DEFAULT INSTALLATION CHOOSE PARTITIONING OF THE HARDDISK FOR YOU. installing this OS on PS3 takes a very, very long time and you DO NOT want to sit through it twice like I did. by default it will try to do an install of / on ext4 with journaling--this will come back as filing system not found error. CHOOSE EXT3 WITH JOURNALING AND DO NOT TOUCH PS3VRAM, repeat, leave ps3vram alone. What i did was alloted 256 Mb to swap and the rest as ext3 for /

things that don't work as of yet, touchpad. wireless kinda works as in i had to manually force a connection. not sure on how to set it up to automatically connect. any suggestions on how to fix these problems would be appreciated. Good luck and in case you are wondering I did try both the Alternate and Desktop 10.10 versions of PPC PS3 Ubuntu and neither worked. Stick with 9.10.

Peace

residual update: I got the wireless to automatically connect by editing

sudo nano /etc/network/interfacesHere is what I had to do:


auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
pre-up /sbin/ifconfig wlan0 up
wireless-key YOUR_HEX_PASSWORD_FOR_WEP_HERE
wireless-essid YOUR_NETWORK_NAME_HERE
post-up /sbin/dhclient wlan0
you will have to replace what is capitalized with your own information.
If you use WPA for security all I will say is that you have to nano /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf and then add a call to it in your /etc/network/interfaces which i am not going to discuss because i do not use WPA so good luck with that
but if you are unsure what your info looks like, do this

sudo iwlist wlan0 scanningI still can't use the friggen fargen touchpad
also, i did sudo apt-get ubuntu-restricted-extras
but use at your own discretion because this ruined my sound so i purged it

touchpad update: resolved. it is a conflict with another package, the solution is to remove or purge it (THE FOLLOWING IS ONLY FOR KARMIC 9.10 NOT NATTY 11.04; nor any other ubuntu release)


sudo apt-get purge xserver-xorg-input-synapticsMy next white whale shall be to utilize the ps3vram and get the multimedia issues fixed. it turns out that while adobe does make a flash player for linux, it does not support PowerPC so i386 architecture only--bummer. I tried firefox plugins gnash and swfdec but they did not solve it. i will let yall know.

REUPDATE: i have got a nice little reward for you. add ps3vram to swap.

first do this:

sudo nano /etc/modulesat the end of this file add this line:

ps3vramsave and then do this

sudo nano /etc/rc.localMAKE THE LAST THREE LINES LOOK LIKE THIS, IN THIS ORDER:

mkswap -f /dev/ps3vram
swapon -p 10 /dev/ps3vram
exit 0
save and reboot. to see if it is working after you reboot issue the following:

swapon -s

streaming video update: (PLEASE DO NOT USE THE FOLLOWING TWO LINKS--INSTEAD PAGE-DOWN MUCH FARTHER TO MY OTHER POST; THE POST WITH THE THUMBNAIL IMAGE)
I have had some luck streaming online content from loombo and movshare by utilizing the following two links:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/50771
also:

sudo apt-get install totem-gstreamer totem-plugins BUT DO USE THIS ^

supplementary update: I have some weird issues with connecting to wifi therefore i added /sbin/dhclient wlan0 to System>Preferences>Startup Applications. also, after I did a software update via System>Administration>Update Manager firefox stayed in offline mode all the time so I had to punch up about:config in the firefox location (where the http www yadda yadda stuff goes) then put toolkit.networkmanager.disable in the filter and double click to set true.

[zoggnoff]

I can confirm that 10.04 Desktop PPC PS3 works too. If you download 11.04 however, only download the alternate or possibly the server edition of ppc but please note that the iso for ppc ps3 is not available (yet?). i did install 11.04 via the Alternate PPC available but the installer would not connect to my network and when i tried to manually set it in execute shell it still would not issue an ip (why this requires network connection i may never know). although to be honest, one thing i should have tried is to set the /etc/network/interfaces like i did before but even if it had connected--the installer would not. therefore what you wind up having is a command prompt and no installed packages which some might prefer but i personally would be lost in the middle of the ocean, so to speak, added to that the screen resolution was that of 4:3 rather than my native 16:3 (probably due to it not being a PS3 release specifically which i would hope you could apt-get ps3videomode to fix) anyway it is your choice if you wish to try it. one more word of advice, even if you do try it and you do want the server edition, get the alternate edition, it has both options built in plus a slew of other ways to install.

(DO NOT USE XFS FILING SYSTEM) the xfs filing system works on the 11.04 non-ps3 edition of ppc yet hangs on all the other true-ps3 editions, don't ask me why. (IT ONLY WORKED ON THE BASE SYSTEM)

also the alternate 11.04 ppc image does not include otheros.bld so you will have to use one of the other discs for the preliminary install other os action in system settings of the XMB Sony Playstation operating system, without that otheros.bld you have no kboot to run the installation. (If you decide to get an otheros.bld file and put that on to a pen drive or some other media you will have to mirror the path of how it is on the installation cds, i.e. C:\PS3\otheros\otheros.bld because this is the only place XMB will look for it on your chosen media)

and i'm now using ex2 instead of ext3 because it is said to be faster, less reliable, but faster. i may go with fluxbox over gnome, still not sure though. i think a lot of this speed tweaking in linux is negligible, especially file system speeds.

irssi ftw

note: on the 11.04 you will want to use your tab key to get to a ppc64 install option as the ps3 is ppc64 not ppc, anything else will cause the machine to gak, shut off and blink

i've already wasted a ton of time on this but i really want that 11.04 so i think later today i am going to work on that, my new plan would be to make the install with my cable modem connected directly to my machine which i have no idea why i didn't think about doing earlier just that i was possibly too tired to think. hopefully with a proper install the wifi fixes itself. i will keep at it

awesome update: I found a procedure on how to upgrade from 10.04 to 10.10 located at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MaverickUpgrades
I will let you know how it goes

Wow I had no idea it would be this easy to upgrade from 10.04 to 10.10.
Here is what i think you should do to get the latest ubuntu on your playstation, download and burn three images. (not as a data disc, as an extracted iso disc with all the folders and stuff on it like one would do in imgburn under write mode not build mode, i.e. write image to disc)
1. 10.04 desktop ppc ps3
2. 10.10 alternate ppc ps3
3. 11.04 alternate ppc
when you have 10.04 installed, all you have to do is load the next disc into the drive and ubuntu will upgrade to 10.10 for you. remember to remove the disc when it reboots, i left mine in and thought i was having the deregistered crap again but i was wrong, just had to remove the disc and i am on 10.10 right now.
i'm now going to put the 11.04 alternate ppc into the drive and hope for the best. (the last two discs have to be alternate and the first has to be desktop for this to work)

also note that 10.04 is a LTS and one can not go from that to 11.04 directly or so i am so told.

another update: i was wrong about loading the 11.04, it did not automatically upgrade and all attempts to mount the cd-rom and issue commands to force an upgrade came back with errors and would not allow an upgrade, even trying upgrade-manager was a total bust with normal upgrades set in the settings (i tried every way in which to get this method to work, it did not work. it was a waste of time). I have not figured what went wrong but i am determined to get 11.04 so i will work on it some more. there is however a huge difference in performance using fluxbox over gnome. it is the best and fast as hell. i was going to abandon firefox in lew of speed but using fluxbox improved the speed like 5 times faster of every app. i hate gnome :D.


sudo apt-get install fluxboxthen just choose it at the bottom before you sign in to the GUI from the login screen. it should default to fluxbox after the first use.

more goodies
do this:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.listadd these

deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org/ lenny main
deb-src http://www.debian-multimedia.org/ lenny main

deb ftp://ftp.debian-multimedia.org/ lenny main
deb-src ftp://ftp.debian-multimedia.org/ lenny mainsave, close and then do this

sudo apt-get updateand then do this

sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2and this

sudo apt-get install clive mplayer

I forgot to tell you that you will need a public key for some of these repositories but that is okay we can fix that. the process is simple when you get the hang of it. we first figure out what key number they are looking for and to do this simply update and read what is at the bottom:

sudo apt-get update
record the key number and do the following using the actual key number:

gpg --keyserver pgpkeys.mit.edu --recv KEYNUMBERHERE
this ought to say something about loading 1 key and then do:

gpg --export --armor KEYNUMBERHERE | sudo apt-key add -
and of course update again

sudo apt-get update

[zoggnoff]

Guess what

mike@ps3:~$
cat /etc/issueUbuntu natty (development branch) \n \l

That's what.

I just did a clean, fresh, direct install of 11.04 Natty Narwhal Ubuntu on Playstation 3 via the Alternate PPC image and success it works!
by the way Ps3 is no longer supported which makes this ridiculously funny.
but as long as Ubuntu supports ppc64 i'm good, you're good. everybody poops :D

the screen is awesome
visually great.
the trick was that i abandoned wifi and hooked straight into the machine,
install went like a charm. a few caveats though

you will need a disc with otheros.bld on it. the, i think, 3.15 or earlier or hacked ps3 firmware--whichever allows you to put linux on ps3 (obvious) and the alternate ppc disc you will need so download all that.

do not do guided partition, do not set boot flags, do not pick anything other than ext2 or ext3 as your / and do not touch ps3vram.
my partition went like this, both being primary not logical.


ps3da1 / ext2 26.0 Gb (exact)
ps3da2 swap 800 Mb (estimated)the installer does not always issue an ip which you will need, but 3 out 4 times it did issue one off the bat when i hooked the ethernet cable directly to the back of the ps3.

write this down

ports.ubuntu.comyou will need this for when it asks you for a mirror during the packages thing
next it will ask you for a sub directory but just leave it as /ubuntu-ports/
you don't need to write that down, it's default

okay so that is about all you really need to know unless the installer does not give you an ip you can go to the main screen and "execute shell" then do this AFTER YOU INSTALL THE BASE SYSTEM BUT BEFORE THE PACKAGES you will need a connection

/target/sbin/ifconfig eth0 upand then

/target/sbin/dhclient eth0if you try it before installing the base system it will come up as not found, i think

first impressions:
i turned off all the startup applications on the default GUI and it is a bit faster plus i am using the 'classic without effects' mode of Gnome. so far so good. i may still go with fluxbox. it needs a lot of tweeking for multimedia. dvds load and ask me what to do but don't actually play or find a suitable plugin so that is annoying.

this was the first thing i added to my box when i got it running

sudo apt-get install ps3-utilsi think this gives you the ps3videomode package, not sure, it might have been included, who knows.
to use it in full screen 720p do sudo ps3videomode -m 3 -f
ps3videomode -m will give a list of other options and the -f is the full screen setting
incidentally you may also want to set full screen mode by editing your /etc/kboot.conf
what you do is put video=ps3fb:mode:131 for 720p which means 3+128 so whatever your resolution is add 128 to that. careful not to place this in the wrong spot.
i will show you mine for your reference

my kboot.conf

message=/etc/kboot.msg
default=linux
timeout=1
linux='/boot/vmlinux initrd=/boot/initrd.img root=/dev/ps3da1 video=ps3fb:mode:131 quiet'
old='/boot/vmlinux.old initrd=/boot/initrd.img.old root=/dev/ps3da1 video=ps3fb:mode:131 quiet'

[charlieluna]

Hi, saw this post and I'm having exactly the same problem/error.

Has anyone come up with fix yet?

you can't install another operating system on the PS3 now. sorry. it was in update 3.54 or 3.55 i think.

I have a PS3 that's why I know this.

And why would you want to screw with something that isn't broken? The PS3 OS works just fine.

[zoggnoff]

you can't install another operating system on the PS3 now. sorry. it was in update 3.54 or 3.55 i think.

I have a PS3 that's why I know this.

And why would you want to screw with something that isn't broken? The PS3 OS works just fine.

Sony did do that but there are ways around it, i.e. modified firmware, reverting to older firmware or perhaps he read that the new firmware would remove otheros and have been avoiding instituting an update. personally if not for its Linux capability i would never use this. i am on 11.04 ubuntu on my ps3 right now watching a DVD, chatting on IRC, editing commands in the terminal and have firefox going with a few webpages on Fluxbox. it is ridiculously fast and you can not do all that at the same time from the XMB. i may never use my laptop again. so to each his own. there are people in the ubuntu chats with myriads of problems concerning hardware yet this little powerpc64 is a champ and has no problem doing the hard work. i got bluetooth, weather updates, plug n play works. it is amazing what this can do.

i have an external burner with usb which i have yet to test but i am fairly confident when i do i can use this to create discs, so rock on

before when i had YDL i used this to run a .com. granted i had to use a free dynamic dns service. makes a great server. runs apache. everything you could dream of doing on linux is possible with PowerPC64 running Ubuntu. XMB is not that versatile though it is awesome

UPDATE!!!! YOUTUBE WORKS:

sudo apt-get install gnash mozilla-plugin-gnash gnash-cygnal gnash-tools
if for some reason that does not work, the first thing i did was downloaded this http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnash/0.8.9/gnash-0.8.9.tar.gz uncompress it in any directory, cd to that dir and do ./configure (with the period in front of the slash)
this configures a list of stuff and then at the end of this were a lot of suggested and needed dependencies for me to "apt-get install" i installed every single one under titles "WARNING" and "RECOMMENDED." (you may not need to do any of this). after ./configure and all the apt-get installs i did make and then after that i did make install. the app did not show up in the plugins so i did the code above this paragraph and youtube worked! success!

web browser SPEEDINESS:

sudo apt-get install midori
this web browser is so god damn fast you would have to be lightning to catch it. (note: i tried seamonkey, opera, arora, konqueror, dillo, w3m, lynx, elinks) as far as capability goes and speed i would say this would be the next best thing to google chromium (chromium does not have a ppc candidate). added to that there is a sweet speed dial which is totally awesome and convenient. midori does youtube. myspace shows up better in midori than it does in firefox (thumbnails will not load in mypace using midori). facebook defaults to the mobile website but if you just bookmark/speed-dial http://www.facebook.com/home.php you will circumvent that. (annoyances about it: some of the other videos that load in firefox won't load in this but then megavideo works better in this so it is literally a mixed bag of results. the passwords for login sites are not saved.) I would say inbetween midori and firefox seamonkey is good but still no where near as fast as midori. it is your choice. but i can literally have fifteen tabs open in midori and you would not know it) I HATE THE duckduckgo default quick search at the top but whatever i can live with that for a while. maybe someone knows how to swap it out?

about dillo:
I wanted to get behind dillo and use it as my all-time browser. dillo is fast but is also very much a dimly-lit mostly-stripped knocked-down skeleton of what i am calling the more desired content-rich action-smooth web browser. this just did not have enough sparkle for me, and i gotta have more sparkle. it is a text-like browser that is way more content rich than the likes of lynx, w3m or elinks. and choosing it over them you can not go wrong. HOWEVER, if you enjoy content as much as the next guy or gal stick with midori. (if you do it up dillo style you will have to get fltk 2.0 uncompressed, configured and installed then do the same for dillo. also, edit /etc/X11/fluxbox/fluxbox-menu to add the execute order to launch it from GUI. do whereis dillo to find the path so you know what to put. and make a copy of your fluxbox-menu, this thing reverted on me more than once. if you edit this try ctrl+w you can then input 'web browser' for a quick search within that document). i am going to go out on a limb and say if you like to read only wiki articles get dillo--it will not make you throw up like those other all-text browsers do but do configure it because at default the text is small.

DVD encryption:
i was able to beat the dvd encrypted error by following the tutorials online HOWEVER only with my external usb dvd writer did this actually work, the internal blu-ray dvd-rom must have some very screwed up programing because i noticed i could play DIE HARD 1 on my external and access all of the disc but then on the internal i could only access the extras and non-encrypted pieces but not one VOB would play off the DVD Video disc in the blu-ray drive nor could i even cp them which tells me that there is nothing out there as far as fixes go and i tried to change the region with regionset but that errored.

add this to your Enable blocklist of Transmission Bittorrent and click update

http://list.iblocklist.com/?list=bt_level1
you can find this yummy snack by right-clicking the fluxbox desktop and then Applications>Network>File Transfer
once in Transmission go into preferences and then to privacy to add the url

thumbnail: thanks, i did not know how to do it small (i misspelled my IRC handle, go figure)

[hulme22]

@ Zoggnoff,
Via google your thread led me here, hence l registered for your view and you online now , one question how do l get the right resolution for my tv after logging in via wonderful petitboot (http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/geoff/cell/ps3-petitboot/) but default is 720 and my tv is 1080i.Pls help

[zoggnoff]

@ Zoggnoff,
Via google your thread led me here, hence l registered for your view and you online now , one question how do l get the right resolution for my tv after logging in via wonderful petitboot (http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/geoff/cell/ps3-petitboot/) but default is 720 and my tv is 1080i.Pls help


sudo ps3videomode -m 4 -fyou will need the ps3-utils package if you do not all ready have them yum them ;) (assuming you are on yellow dog linux) the -f denotes full screen, page-up to see how to add this at boot

[hulme22]

U true dawg! Prompt reply, Ta. Used to have YDL, then one day, PS3 failed with hard drive is corrupted blah blah blah, luckily enough was one of the saddoes that refuse to upgrade knowing what it will do to my PS3, so got all back on 3.15 hence the search for OS and obviously last YDL was 6.2 so l`m trying Ubuntu and hence the issues and please forgive me, l`m from the dark side (Microsoft) my initial training was in unix, but like l said now on the dark side, hence my ignorance, ah the package that is what i need.Merci.

[zoggnoff]

to any person undecided or contemplating an attempt to install please be well informed:

Natty Narwhal 11.04 as of April 6th 2011 is beta. it is not now nor will it be a long-term support or LTS release.
The 'current stable' is Maverick Meerkat 10.10.
Natty goes stable on April 28th


LTS duration: three years. (five years for server) Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04 is LTS

[hulme22]

@ Zoggnoff,
Thank you, all working ok.

[zoggnoff]

new update: well it has been a while since i posted anything new to this thread and in hindsight i probably should have created my own thread but i just wanted to share with you a new development in my world. I discovered i could put Fedora 12 on ps3 so that is what I did. it took some doing. i had to use the petitboot from kernel.org to install and when it rebooted it pointed at the wrong /dev/sda1 device but a simple edit in petitboot by pressing e let me rearrange the tags. i changed them permanently in /boot/etc/yaboot.conf so now it boots in fullscreen video=ps3fb:mode:131 with the proper /dev/ps3da location set in yaboot. a simple edit of /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 to set ONBOOT to equal y instead of no got the internet going after reboot and editing /etc/rc.local like i did before got /dev/ps3vram activated as swap. I had to yum a lot of packages as the system was pretty blank. also, i had to yum remove synaptics to get the touchpad/mouse working. the only window manager that would run was XFCE and the gnash plugin is different in Fedora, it is yum install gnash-plugin. first thing to do in Fedora was to yum groupinstall Base and go through the list of groupinstalls by doing yum -y grouplist then yum groupinstall 'Whatever The Name of the Group is' then i also created a hashed password in openssl passwd then i did useradd -p MYHASHEDPASS mike to add a regular user, then visudo to add mike to the sudoers file under where it said ROOT ALL etc. etc. mirroring the root entry but using mike instead of root of course.

took some doing but i managed to get it all working. i downloaded fedora 12 ppc dvd iso in Ubuntu and burned it in Ubuntu using Brasero so that was awesome because that was a first for me.

not having fluxbox is kind of terrible.

I do not actually intend on keeping Fedora or intend on talking about it but my actual goal with having Fedora is to compile Red Hat Enterprise Linux from source-code using the SRPMs so that i can have that and possibly do a CentOS-like release of my own. the CentOS team do not have access to PowerPC64 so with less people using this architecture and more developers and open source projects dropping out it is up to me to figure a way to do it. CentOS for all that do not know is actually RHEL's compiled source code with various copyrighted images and possibly some of the non-free packages removed. Community ENTerprise Operating System is the most used production server in the world because it is free, available in binary and compiled from Red Hat Enterprise Linux which is software you can compile from source yourself but can not obtain binaries of without paying a support fee to license that support. the purpose would be to use RHEL to cram for a Red Hat Certified Engineer exam which from what i understand is a lengthy test and a certification that pays to have under one's belt. not that one can not make a living using Ubuntu as a production server but it seems that people are more apt to use CentOS, Debian, Fedora, Suse or RHEL for these tasks than they are to use Ubuntu though as a user-friendly desktop replacement built on the same technology as the aforementioned distributions Ubuntu is one of the greatest additions ever pioneered.

i realise this was not a ubuntu topic. i apologise and feel free to gripe at me but i had to get it off my chest


SCREENSHOT OF FEDORA 12 PPC ON PS3
http://oi51.tinypic.com/1gke3k.jpg (http://oi51.tinypic.com/1gke3k.jpg)

_
_

update1: i eventually did get fluxbox to run with startx at the command line by first passing echo "exec startfluxbox" > ~/.xinitrc on the command line. to boot into it i am told that one would have to edit /etc/inittab changing the runlevel to 5, e.g. id:5:initdefault: I was however, not able to get the sound to work properly even though it would play when i switched between terminals, i.e. when the GUI was unattended.

reupdate: I decided to scrap the install and reinstall via VNC. (Fedora did not originally give me a graphical installer because PS3 simply does not have enough RAM to run it by itself. i am told anaconda's text based installer leaves out a lot of packages which explains why i was left with what felt like a partial Operating System.) it was pretty straight forward. i edited the arg in petitboot placing vnc video=720p ps3fb=4M ro there and then i opened port 1 of the PS3's ip by calling up the router's gateway ip in a web browser adding the port under the gaming & applications heading. i installed TightVNC Viewer on my Win XP machine which i used to connect to my PS3 manually via 192.168.1.103:1. i am still running the install so i can not comment on how it went; so far so good. i added rpmfusion-free and rpmfusion-nonfree to the repositories during install as to build a more complete dependency tree, the urls for that are http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/releases/12/Everything/ppc64/os/ and http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/releases/12/Everything/ppc64/os/ (also, I may not build RHEL from source afterall but I have not made up my mind to do it or not. Red Hat provides an evaluation binary that is updatable for 30 days so i may just wind up using that and they do support PPC. also, i found that Red Hat serves a beta of version 6 for PPC on the main ftp of their domain in DVD ISO form.) there is a graphical petitboot out there some place that i will most likely install once i have everything configured. i have been keeping a copy of the text based petitboot on external usb and loading it into XMB that way. i hope adding a different version of petitboot will not affect my installation--i am confident it will not.

another update: Well the installation went fine, here is a screenshot post install http://oi55.tinypic.com/2v0hczs.jpg and the sound works out of the box as did the mouse but the video has a blue smurf effect that no output video mode changing seems to fix. I am glad to say i picked up another trick to using linux on PS3, if you add KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=us to the arguments in yaboot.conf where quiet or ro and video=ps3fb:mode:131 is--the cursor comes alive in terminal which might explain why i did not need to yum remove synaptics to get the touchpad working in the GUI this last time.

blue smurf update: i have no idea why or what makes this work when vlc would not work but if you install mplayer and then mplayer -vo sdl filename.avi it just works perfectly and then you hit f to go fullscreen. works a treat and no blue tint. subsequently you may have to bring pulseaudio up by start-pulseaudio-x11 and then add -ao pulse to the mplayer command, e.g. mplayer -vo sdl -ao pulse filename.avi of course you will need to have a lot of the gstreamer packages installed and i am using alt+f2 religiously to launch applications in fluxbox, it works a lot like a gnome-terminal without leaving all that onscreen data spooling about.

graphical petitboot update: do not use it. it is not worth the hassle and it does not work right. it has no ps3-bl-option to change resolutions and in 480p mode it was simply unusable. although, i will say petitboot should probably be used over kboot everytime because petitboot supports ext4 and kboot does not.


Another screenshot: http://oi56.tinypic.com/sglstl.jpg as you can see i favor firefox's download manager so firefox gets used. midori is faster but it lacks a graphical download manager. which is not so terrible but with firefox i can pause and restart downloads. for large files it is a necessity.

command of interest: brasero crapped out a coaster so i decided to look into burning an image to dvd from the command line so i did growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/cdrom1=RHEL6.0-20100414.0-AP-ppc64-DVD1.iso and it worked.

RHEL binaries update: neither 5.6 or beta 6.0 would load the installation so i will be compiling RHEL Server 6.0 from source-code on my own.

[hirofujira]

hi, I'm compiling a new version of kernel, and I was wondering what is the recommended size for ps3fb (aka PS3 GUI framebuffer) ?

Additional info on installing Ubuntu:
If you still have problems installing 10.04 with Desktop Edition, use the alternate CD. That's how I was able to install Ubuntu 10.04 on my PS3.

[zoggnoff]

wow you guys.. i discovered lubuntu-desktop and man is it fast.

what i did was installed ubuntu server with no extra packages and then



sudo aptitude install lubuntu-desktopwhen you restart the server, at the login screen, before you enter your username and password choose LXDE in the drop down menu on the bottom left.


my next mission will be to scrap this install of ubuntu server and run the lastest mini.iso http://ports.ubuntu.com/dists/oneiric/main/installer-powerpc/current/images/powerpc64/netboot/mini.iso for an even leaner version of this but FYI no matter what flavor of ubuntu you have--if you install lubuntu-desktop and choose LXDE and have /dev/ps3vram in your mkswap and swapon you will see a huge difference in speed.


even video plays better and the cpu cycles aren't all over the place and peaking like they were in the other desktop managers.. this method uses lxdm in conjunction with LXDE to give you a very fast OS.


i keep drifting between midori web browser and firefox and i suspect that using the package manager to install these provides one with not the latest release of these applications which is probably why i am continuely having to use firefox for some tasks. i have yet to successfully compile chromium web browser, i need to resolve that soon. the only way to get current versions of gnash and midori is to compile and set the new paths and configurations yourself. one caveat about chromium--i have read that it is not faster than midori though i'd rather use it as opposed to firefox so this is essential to me.. also i have picked up a new handy command that helps before attempting to compile the latest application of these things.

the command is for example for building the latest midori:


sudo aptitude build-dep midori


i will be trying a few tweaks and will give a run down on how and what i use.. new updates soon