Official: Yellow Dog Linux 5.0 with Enlightenment DR17

Arwin · Post by **Arwin** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 1:59 am

http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/news/ ... 0-17.shtml

LOVELAND, Colorado - 17 October 2006 - Terra Soft is proud to announce Yellow Dog Linux v5.0 for PLAYSTATION®3 from Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI).

Yellow Dog Linux v5.0, Terra Soft's next generation Linux operating system for Power will support PLAYSTATION 3, providing an end-user experience far surpassing previous versions. Through an aggressive, rapid co-development project conducted by Carsten Haitzler and the Enlightenment development team, Yellow Dog Linux v5.0, built upon Fedora Core 5, now integrates the next generation "E17" desktop in order to provide an unprecedented level of function and interface aesthetic. Designed for users of all ages and all levels of experience, Yellow Dog Linux v5.0 is Terra Soft's most advanced distribution to date.

"We have worked closely with the energetic, determined E17 team to bring this advanced graphical user interface to a state of interface euphoria. It's not about eye candy and unnecessary special effects, it's about finding balance between a lean, uncluttered desktop and a personal environment that is both familiar and powerful. E17 is simply the most incredible thing I have ever used --with any operating system," states Cesar Delgado, System Administrator for Terra Soft.

Owen Stampflee, Lead Software Engineer of Terra Soft Solutions expresses, "From the days of the Commodore 64 to modern overclocked and water cooled home computers, a battle has raged between dedicated game boxes and home computers for highest quality game play. PLAYSTATION 3 provides an industry first exceptional Linux OS experience ... and Terra Soft the first Linux OS. I am proud to have played a part in this development."

Under basic agreement with SCEI, Terra Soft was granted a unique opportunity to develop and bring to market a complete Linux OS for the Sony PLAYSTATION 3. In development of Yellow Dog Linux v5.0, Terra Soft integrated and enhanced code from Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Sony Group, and Fedora in order to offer the following:
- kernel 2.6.16
- gcc 4.1.1 and glibc 2.4
- Cell SDK 1.1
- OpenOffice.org 2.0.2
- FireFox 1.5.0 and Thunderbird 1.5.0
- Nautilus 2.14
... and a suite of Personal Accessories, Development Tools; Sound & Video, Internet, and Networking applications.

A single-click installer enables absolutely anyone to install without instruction. Post-install, the default suite of applications presents an intuitive, self-guided means of exploring Linux without the confusion of multiple applications in the same family. An Advanced installer mode enables selection from greater than fifteen hundred packages, as is expected from a complete Linux distribution.

PLAYSTATION 3 is an advanced computer system designed to provide next generation computer entertainment contents in the home, incorporating the state-of-the-art Cell microprocessor with super computer like power.

As a guest of IBM at the annual SC2006 tradeshow, Nov 13-16, Tampa, Florida, Terra Soft will showcase Yellow Dog Linux v5.0, Y-HPC v2.0 beta, and Y-Bio v1.1. Yellow Dog Linux v5.0 for PLAYSTATION 3 will be made available through YDL.net Enhanced accounts, through the Terra Soft on-line Store, retailers, and public mirrors world-wide.

Durante · Post by **Durante** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 7:52 am

Note that they stealth-edited the press release - it's now GCC4!

I wondered why they'd go with 3 - with 4 there's a chance that they won't have to do a major GCC version switch during most of the PS3's lifetime.

FreeFighter · Post by **FreeFighter** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 8:02 am

Installation guide: http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/suppo ... _guide.pdf
Apps: http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/produ ... apps.shtml

Shapyi · Post by **Shapyi** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 8:30 am

Has Sony added drivers for the RSX graphics chip or is this running with a frame buffer as well?

Arwin · Post by **Arwin** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 3:09 am

Frame buffer as well.

Here's a demo of part of the install and first testing. It seems to be very useable out of the box, with firefox and GAIM ready to go.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsOWEi9G6-w

zaphod · Post by **zaphod** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 4:23 pm

I strongly suspect they are locking down the RSX to keep you from writing a ps3 emu for ps3. :)

Since the cell is a parallel architecture, you could concievably dedicate some to the OS, and have a lot left over for trying to run ripped commercial games.

So they've got the RSX locked down because of this, and it seems they've got the hypervisor monitoring things to stop you from doing bad stuff (defined as stuff that helps you pirate). curently it is still possible to dump blu-ray discs with dd, but these raw dumps do not bypass the protection in any way, as i suspect the decryption keys are not grabbed by such a raw dump, same as dvd was beore DeCSS.

They probably have the hypervisor checking for ps2 and ps1 game media that would fail in a ps2, and locking them out too, if they can figure out how.

That said, i suspect in the future, we will see an opengl implementation that will pass through the hypervisor, and an acclerated 2d x server that will also slip thru the hypervisor. Forcing you to go thr CG to talk to the RSX should be enough to prevent using linux to bypass protection.

Shapyi · Post by **Shapyi** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 12:08 pm

Well hopefully they can provide access to write 3D applications with hardware accelaration with protection against piracy. But lets be honest, how different do you guys think that the PS3 XMB OS is from PSP? Don't you think someone will exploit it and open it up to homebrew developers and piracy... I would gladly like to see official Sony tools support for development of homebrew.

My PSP has 1.50, when I get PS3 I do not want to be forced to keep a lower firmware just to run and develope homebrew software. I think we would all like to keep our firmware up to date and have Linux as a backdrop for homebrew development.

We will have to see, PS3 is still very new, aside from getting Linux to boot (which is officially support) nothing major has come out of the scene yet...

mtb · Post by **mtb** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 8:59 am

Shapyi wrote:But lets be honest, how different do you guys think that the PS3 XMB OS is from PSP? Don't you think someone will exploit it and open it up to homebrew developers and piracy...

Considering the hyperviser on cell, the Playstation 5 will be out before unsigned code is run under the GameOS on the PS3:)

Linux on PS3 is here today and more than usable for homebrew. No, currently there is no GPU access, but any homebrew author has his/her hands full for a while getting to grips with the Cell.

I've got Gentoo running happily on my PS3, the install is pretty painless (see http://www.daniel.jp/joomla/info/ps3/in ... e-ps3.html)

J.F. · Post by **J.F.** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 10:27 am

Even if Sony NEVER gave an accelerated video driver for linux (very hard to believe), you could always use the SPEs to accelerate the video. The kinds of rendering that video cards do would be simple for the SPE. Think of it as having up to six pixel pipes. :)

It wouldn't be as fast as being able to use the RSX, but it would work fine.