Linux For Playstation 3/CELL

[xxqq]

http://www.playstation.com/ps3-openplatform/index.html

Is there any official release of Linux/LiveCD for Sony Playstation 3 with Cell CPU?
What is the version of the kernel?
Is it bug free/reliable as x86 version?

Thank you.

[mahlerfan]

It's Yellow Dog Linux-- you can download it here--

http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/re...ownloads.shtml

[xxqq]

Apparently other distros can also be used:

"Yes, this is huge news in itself. But that's not all. Apparently, you can install ANY linux distro on your PS3 as long as it has a PowerPC build available - and that includes just about every popular distribution of Linux out there. A quick hop to my favorite distro websites shows that all of them run on PowerPC processors, which means that all of them will probably run on the PS3.

Here's a small list of the Linux distros which run on PowerPC (PPC)
Ubuntu
Fedora Core
SUSE (Paid) / openSUSE (Free)
Gentoo"

Unfortunately none of the distro is optimized for Cell and cannot use the 7 co-processor units inside cell.

[Juan Pablo]

Is CELL a new arch? Doesn't SMP in the kernel use the 7 processors?
I know that an app needs to be rewrited to make use of multiple cores but can't kernel schedule automatically direct each binary to a specific core?

[xxqq]

> New architecture

The main core of CELL is a powerpc without "Branch speculation".

The co-processor called SPE is a different architecture. It is impossible to use PowerPC Linux kernel on the 7 SPE.
On PS3, only 6 of 7 SPE is used because some CELL CPU have 1 defective SPE.

Unfortunately Linux for PS3 run under some sort of Hypervizor and cannot acces the accelerated graphics processor.

The upcoming PA Semi PowerPC System-on-chip have 16 PowerPC cores at 2 GHz each.

[goldfingerfif]

> New architecture

The main core of CELL is a powerpc without "Branch speculation".

The co-processor called SPE is a different architecture. It is impossible to use PowerPC Linux kernel on the 7 SPE.
On PS3, only 6 of 7 SPE is used because some CELL CPU have 1 defective SPE.

Unfortunately Linux for PS3 run under some sort of Hypervizor and cannot acces the accelerated graphics processor.

The upcoming PA Semi PowerPC System-on-chip have 16 PowerPC cores at 2 GHz each.

Because some CELL's have a defective SPE? That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. The reason is because 1 is dedicated to the OS at all times. If you boot to another OS then all 7 should be available unless the PS3 os is still running.