On Jan 19, 2008 8:48 PM, David Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Has anyone else tried Linux for the PS3? > > I just repartitioned the drive (using menus in the built-in firmware), and > installed Gentoo. > > Interesting machine. It seems that everything is custom. All of the > devices probed are on the PS3 bus (no PCI), and are things like, PS3 disk, > or PS3 SD controller. But, Sony provides drivers, so it seems to work > well. > > I can't say I've ever seen 8 penguins before, especially with some bigger > than others. There are two big penguins for the two main cores, and then 6 > smaller penguins for the cell processors. I haven't tried finding anything
The processor itself is the Cell. The 6 extra penguins represent 6 of the 8 SPEs (Synergistic Processing Elements). You don't get access to all 8. Games do, which is why it can render so nicely. A while back Hugh Blemmings from IBMs OZLabs (http://ozlabs.org/) gave a presentation at SoCalLinux.org (formerly 909Linux) on the abilities of the processor. Here is a link to download his presentation http://socallinux.org/pipermail/linuxusers/2007-June/001257.html (its a pdf at bottom). The presentation has some good information but he spoke in much more detail at the meeting. enjoy > that could use the cells. There is supposed to be a dev-kit available for > it, and although it is programmed in high-level languages such as C, it > apparently isn't all that easy. > > It's certainly faster than my other PowerPC based machines, but just as a > general computer, it's still slower than the Core2. > > The boot-loader is interesting. It's a small linux kernel and initrd that > reads config files and can kexec the main kernel. > > Dave > > > -- > [email protected] > http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list > -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
