Air Force Unhappy With Removal of Linux from PS3

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Maybe they should have considered a High Performance Computing solution from a manufacturer that actually supports the product for that use. It boggles my mind that our national defense is in some small way dependent upon gaming systems.
 
[citation][nom]zoemayne[/nom]dont they have power over this civilian company.... doesnt the airforce get special treatment?....[/citation]
no, because it is not soviet Russia.
 
[citation][nom]hixbot[/nom]b23h, sony takes a loss on every console sold. if you don't buy games they actually lose money by selling you a ps3.[/citation]

Yeah but the government pays $300 for a screwdriver. They probably paid Sony $30,000 per PS3 and thought they were getting a deal :)
 
[citation][nom]victomofreality[/nom]that will never happen cuz sony doesn't have oil...[/citation]

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH!

Diss of the year!!!!!!!!!! xD hahahahahahah
 
Google builds it own servers, why can the Pentagon do the same ?
If they want heavy floating point processing (vector computing) they should go with Nvidia Tesla servers.

Nvidia, don't forget about my commission if they do 🙂
 
Gonna punch the guys that dropped not one, but two, world changing bombs on them, in the eye... Hey! We were using those to break encryption! *click*
 
It wouldn't surprise me if Sony makes a "special" (ie old version) PS3 for the Air Force. It's like Vegas...you give whatever your high rollers want.
 
I think the USAF needs to stop playing games, and buy a REAL server, its probably time they got there software engineers to have a look a
GPCPU's anyway.
 
[citation][nom]segio526[/nom]I'm sure all those systems count towards Sony's sales numbers and number of blu-ray players back during the format wars.[/citation]
yes like 2200 consoles made a difference. i'm pretty sure this was bought after they had won the format war as in the article it stated that they were considering the slim ps3. By the way heres a brain tingler did all the red ringed xbox 360's count toward their total systems shipped?
 
[citation][nom]surfer1337dude[/nom]No, since Sony is not a contract by the air force they have no control over what Sony does....although all that money is something that can influence them. The ps3 was the best item they had for this product (atleast at the time...keep in mind best also means for the price). Agreed XD[/citation]

Sony has a contract with the airforce. The customer producer contract. If a company sells a product promising Linux (or anything else) it actually has to offer these features otherwise people can do something, or should be able to do something. Lawsuits are to expensive!
 
Looks like the Air Force is going to have to commit to an IBM PowerPC. The reason why the Airforce bought the PS3 is because they offered the cell processor for much cheaper then a full blown chip would cost.
 
[citation][nom]feeddagoat[/nom]Surely GPU's can handle the sort of calculations PS3 do with far greater efficiency.[/citation]
Actually no they can't do those type of calculations with any accuracy that is why they chose the ps3 the cell does certain types of calculations much faster than anything you can use in a pc.
I was posting about this before if you think about it at some time all fat ps3 with other os options will no longer exist because nothing lasts forever at that point the military,researchers will be out of luck.
It would be in there best interest to join the class action lawsuit even if they get sony to repair and keep original firmware would be worth it or old firmware because i don't think firmware allows you to flash older versions only newer.

 
Air Force or no Air Force, Sony will only put back in other OS support if it is cheaper in the long run. Since they lose money on every system and do not make it up in games from cases such as this, as long as the lawsuit ends up costing them less they will stay steadfast.

However, they just might whip up a special batch for such a large order; This is only if they can make a profit on the units and not take a loss. Seeing as how the government overpays for most items this might not be a problem. A few sample figures below..

2200*350= $770,000 (Current Retail)
2200*600= $1,320,000 (Original Price)
 
[citation][nom]trevorvdw[/nom]Yeah but the government pays $300 for a screwdriver. They probably paid Sony $30,000 per PS3 and thought they were getting a deal[/citation]

I know you like to think America works the way it does in the movies but overspending like that was an exageration when it was first said aloud. When I was in the Air Force we were required to search out the BEST prices not ...... prices like you seem to think.

And those that think that America only cares about oil have no sense of what it takes to run a country.
 
[citation][nom]kronos_cornelius[/nom]Google builds it own servers, why can the Pentagon do the same ?If they want heavy floating point processing (vector computing) they should go with Nvidia Tesla servers.Nvidia, don't forget about my commission if they do 🙂[/citation]

Google at one point did the same thing the USAF is doing now, buying cheap "computers" and simply replacing them if they break down. If they were to buy a server with similar capabilities, they would be spending thousands per unit, not hundreds like they are now with the PS3. The PS3, unlike most other computers, has better multi-processing capabilities that even an 8-core Intel CPU can't match. It is the way the cell processor was built, and possibly the RSX GPU as well.
 
[citation][nom]bebangs[/nom]i wonder why they offer "Other OS" in the first place?[/citation]

Not sure why this comment was voted down. It seems to be a very valid point and question. If Sony has such a problem with another OS being installed on the PS3 then why was the machine programmed that way to begin with? Why give it then take it away in such a huff?
 
I really hate it when websites throw up obnoxious advertising that blocks the text your are trying to read. I can't read the entire left side of the article because of a stupid ad for XenServer. The worst part is that it scrolls with the page and there is no obvious way to shut it down.
 
[citation][nom]mjpereira76[/nom]I really hate it when websites throw up obnoxious advertising that blocks the text your are trying to read. I can't read the entire left side of the article because of a stupid ad for XenServer. The worst part is that it scrolls with the page and there is no obvious way to shut it down.[/citation]

Although I never experience this, I agree. Advertisement should stick to banner on side or top. No pop ups, no flash ad that expands when you hover over it, no ad that follows you as you scroll, etc. For shame.
 
Sony is a big monster and uses corporate communism to get its way. While less than 5% of PS3 users actually install Linux, it was a feature that Sony sold to every buyer. Sony didn't have to support adding on a OS feature but they did. WHY??? Because it was a way to get more buyers, publicity, and acceptance. I've haven't installed Linux but it was a feature that gave me more reasons to fork $600 (I was one of the early adopters who paid the $600). If they don't want to provide support to the new systems - no problem. But if they take it away from existing users... then I want my $600 back.

FYI - After very light use (maybe used it for 1-2 hrs a week for 2 years) the blu-ray diode was toasted and now my PS3 is no smarter than my toaster.

 
I've read THG for years and finally decided to register to post about this ridiculous topic.

I have run Linux on my personal PS3. You can't do much with it because of the severe memory limitations.

I have also architected and deployed high performance computing grids at work. I know that numerous universities made headlines several years ago using the PS3 for computing grids, but I don't know what kind of data they were manipulating.

I know that the data we manipulate with HPC systems cannot run on a system with 256 MB RAM. (512 with the RSX memory sharing enabled, but that's a big performance hit.) Absolutely no way. We use at least a gigabyte per core, and the PS3's cell exposes 7 cores to Linux.

It's also rated as a total of 2 teraflops single precision. A new Westmere-EP is 4 teraflops single precision. Need double precision? PS3 can't hang at all. Oops.

Sounds like the USAF is wasting money.
 
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