Question about Slim PS3.

[Sketchzter]

Unfortunately, my old fat PS3 broke down earlier this year. I had been wanting to fix it for a while already or buy a new one, especially now that they dropped the price, but there's something I'm wondering about the Slim PS3.

Is it still possible to set up a Linux OS on it? My friend told me they excluded this feature from the Slim PS3, but I don't really trust his word on the matter, so I just want to make sure.

Just debating whether I should purchase the new slim PS3, or send my old PS3 to get fixed by Sony; Linux OS being a pretty big deciding factor for me.

 

[Tyrath]

No more Linux OS. They removed custom OS from all future ps3s apparently.

 

[Bajaratt]

Why do you want to install Linux on it? I'm just curious.

 

[Sketchzter]

Hrmmm, that's a deffinate bummer. Seems like Sony doesn't want their users to have the freedom they originally granted. First no PS2 backwards compatabilty, and now no Linux OS ><; Ohwell, not like setting up Linux on their PS3 is something most people do.

Linux was pretty fun to have on the PS3 Baja, especially since we only have one computer in the house that has to be shared by like 3-4 people. With Ubuntu on the PS3, I was able to basically do anything I wanted to do on the PC, w/o having to kick off whoever was on it. (Mozilla Firefox on the PS3 is a million times better than the native browser the PS3 has)

Plus, emulation of old school games on a 42" HDTV is always cool. Specifically DOS and SNES games, but I recently set up the Homebrew channel on my Wii. Been having fun with that.

 

[Anttaru]

My associates think Sony made this decision because they don't want people messing with the PS3 anymore. They want it to be more a more dedicated console.

I personally think Sony doesn't want people buying the PS3 as a cheap alternative to getting a PC. They want consumers to buy PS3 games and if someone is using it as a Linux computer all the time, then everyone surrounding the console will be less motivated to buy games for it.

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In my Business, we love PS3's with Linux cause it allows us to utilize the Cell Processors freakish number crunching capabilities. Mental Ray render times get severely slashed with 1 PS3, let alone the cluster of 7 we satellite together. (Smoke.)

We use Linux based PS3's as render farms here, and it just doesn't happen without Linux. When we want to make another render farm, we'll defiantly be seeking out Fat PS3.

As convenient or entreating Linux PS3's are for some of us. The reason for it's cancellation is because of people like you and I Sketchzter.

 

[Sketchzter]

Yea, it's deffinately a bummer. They severly limitted the amount of proccessing power that could be used on Linux anyhow (atleast for a single system), so not like Sony ever ran the risk of people ripping off PS3 games and such. Obviously if I wanted to do the sort of stuff that a PC can do, the sensible way to go was to get another PC, but having Linux on the PS3 was really convenient. Or atleast it was for me.

Plus, I still used my PS3 to play PS3 games a majority of the time. The worst part was that I had only gotten about 2-3 days of playing Skate 2 when the PS3 died, so I never got to fully enjoy that game x.x

 

[Anttaru]

The RAM is limited, but not the processing power.