Damn Small Linux

[Chrisoldinho]

Has anyone considered using something like DSL on the PS3?

At only 50Mb and capable of running a nice GUI with only 16MB of RAM needed (it'll run fully in the RAM at just 128MB with Firefox included) it seems like the perfect solution to those of us wanting to run a PS3 quickly.

Chris.

[TOMMOHAWK_UK]

Not been tested AFAIK. I had a look at the DSL forums but couldn't find anything concrete.

With such a small distribution, I think that hardware detection is going to be you biggest problem. Only one way to find out, give it a try!!

I think you would be better trying Ubuntu as this is known to work. you can strip Ubuntu down to the real basics so you only install what you need. Otherwise follow the same train of thought and use yellowdog - this is a Sony sponsored distribution and designed for the PS3.

Must say that I haven't installed any other OS on my PS3 - must get round to that one day.

[stuker]

AKAIK there is no DSL distribution for the PS3 architecture at the moment so you will have to get hold of the source and compile it yourself......but then again as tommohawk says there will be an issue with hardware detection as well. Worth a shot if you have the time.


I have tried four distros for the ps3 (YDL, gentoo, fedora and Ubuntu) with ubuntu my pick of the bunch.

[Chrisoldinho]

I've tried Ubuntu but got irritated by the constant chaning FW updates knacking my Wi Fi connection then having to wait a couple of weeks before someone figured out a workaround.

In the end I chose YDL, because whilst the download is larger (about 3GB more), it doesn't actually install that much infact it's only about 500MB larger than Ubuntu when installed (roughly 2GB) - Couple that with IMO superior support for the PS3 platform PPC Architecture and the fact that issues with Wireless etc aren't too hard to workaround it made more sense for me. I'm still using the GNOME GUI so it's very similar in operation to Ubuntu.

To speed up performance I have disabled many none essential services and removed a lot of the programs I really will never use, this too has contributed to usability. I'd say i'm down to about a 30 second boot time and can run Firefox, Media players and Email at the same time with only a few second delay between switching screens.

Chris.

[stuker]

well i suppose it down to choice in the end ---- which is the advantage of linux with the array of distributions out there.

PS:Another thing that annoyed me about YDL is that it is a red hat variant and i cant be asked messing with RPM dependancies if i can help it....

[Chrisoldinho]

YDL use "YUM" to get around dependancies. It automatically finds what dependancies are needed and downloads them prior to installing the required software.

For example lets say you wanted to install xcompmgr (gives menu & border shading similar to Vista in GNOME it requires dependencies only in Ferodo).

You would do something like

Su
password: xxxxxx

yum install xcompmgr
exit


It would then install the necessary RPM dependancies :)

yum can either be used through the GUI or Terminal - although using it in the Terminal is easier & required in some instances where you need root access.

The only thing that annoys me about YDL is that you need to install something like swfdec because Flash Player is not supported by Adobe as it's PPC.

I know Ubuntu doesn't have this problem, not sure about the PS3 distro??? (if anyone knows the answer to this please let me know)

[stuker]

YUM only works if the RPM package is held in the online YUM repository which in most cases it is. If the RPM is not in the repository then you need to download and install the RPM from the command line manually....... thats where the fun starts.

[TOMMOHAWK_UK]

@ chrisoldhino

YDL on PS3 uses YUM as its package manager. I would go for a synaptic based distro every time. Don't personally rate YUM although it should automatically resolve dependency problems for you. Providing the dependency is in the repository of course!

Ken

[Chrisoldinho]

I'm not that much in the know about Debian based OS's like Ubuntu, care to share what a synaptic based distro offers?

Thanks, Chris.

[TOMMOHAWK_UK]

Syn-APT-ic is just a version of the Advanced Packaging Tool which was originally designed for Debian based distros such as Ubuntu.

See more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Packaging_Tool

As it says in Wikipedia, it has been modified to work with RPM (Redhat Package Manager) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPM_Package_Manager but the primary tool that YDL, openSUSE and others such as Fedora use is YUM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_dog_Updater%2C_Modified

In a nutshell, thats it. APT & YUM are just package management tools. Which you prefer is down to individual choice. Personally, I love openSUSE as a distro but I don't like using YUM because I think APT is better and more user friendly and that's why I use Ubuntu.

Ken