Sony's PS3 Drops Linux; Why You Should Care

[hemelskonijn]

You do realise with comments like that you are showing what a moron you are right?, there are more servers running *nix then there are running windows and that includes the SBS editions also there is hardly any use for windows in systems oriented on scientific tasks except for text editing and spreadsheets wich are replaced by linux for cost reduction the EU and the nations in it invest in linux like the french and belgian government who sponsor mandriva linux (and use ubuntu on 56% of government owned systems. You don't have to like it but linux is viable and far from useless.

 

[captaincharisma]

dude if you cared what people thought of you on internet forums then you should really get professional help

and when i said useless OS i meant useless OS for the PS3. it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that linux is popular

but thanks for the wikipedia info hemelskonijn

 

[shqtth]

By pulling away from linux, Sony is just opening itself up to hackers. It wont be long until the hardware will run linux, and since it will be hacked, Piracy will increase and it will be totally out of Sony control. By Sony providing its own linux, at least they have control over the system, and the could force people using linux to update to newer versions to address security.

 

[jalek]

Wait until they find out DivX support is often used to play ripped movies.
That'll be removed next.

Has anyone been stupid enough to buy movies from PSN? $20 for a bunch of bits you have no actual ownership of and only access at their pleasure.

They should've just ported their SecureROM system over. That fixes everything, right?

 

[xophaser]

most people here probably don't have a PS3, so I don't know why they are arguing about, just hypothetically I guess. Tomhardware posters bash the PS3 all the time. I have one and am pissed they took it off. Not that I installed linux, but was thinking about it. The principle of bait and switch is why I am mad. I am against piracy myself so overtime I might understand.

One, most government agency that bought the PS3s for cluster are not going to update the ps3, they probably have their own software or engineer on the PS3.
I thought about a class action lawsuit, where I get a rebate for 200 since that is the price different of mine 500-300 of the slim non-linux model. Or I just keep my old PS3 and not update it for linux and get another slim, like how some xbox360 owners have five at their home and 3-4 are broken. Or I just get a small htpc with a working graphic card, but the PS3 is a cheap htpc with linux.

 

[chefboyeb]

I totally hate these kind of business antics... Oh! And i hate sony for this too... I wish there was a way to bypass doing update and still get online to handle my ish... Aarrgghh!!

 

[lolsir]

PS3 is a very powerful console...i wonder when they gona lauchn ps4??

 

[wavebossa]

[citation][nom]hemelskonijn[/nom]wavebossa:The thing is microsoft wont remove features from windows and if they do it wont be a mandatory update (not that removing features ever is an update). Even so lets say microsoft removed a function in example audio cd playback and i skipped the update i can still play games for windows log in to msn messenger and do my updates. This way they force me to make an educated choice between having their audio cd player or having to use 3th party software but the rest of my software and it feature or functions would remain unchanged.Sony on the other hand does remove a function and forces us to chose between losing (online) gaming functions and a whole lot more or losing the linux functions and in this case there is no 3th party solution making your analogy between microsoft windows and the sony playstation3 invalid.Once more keep in mind that an EULA has no value in most of the world and they sold us a working product.[/citation]

Sigh... it is a valid analogy. It may not be the most direct analogy, but it is 100% valid. If you disagree then I cant help you understand anymore than I already have.

But I can garuntee you this, if a lawsuit is brought against Sony for this, nothing will happen because they have done nothing illegal whatsoever.

Talk to old school mac users about java if you still don't understand...

 

[viometrix]

well my lawsuit has been signed and they will be served. it is 100% fact that they cannot remove features that came with the system unless they can 100% prove it is going to harm the end users system in some way. this is not the case. they sold it with printed feature, they advertise it with said features. they can only remove it from the slims because to my knowledge it didnt ship with it. also i have over 100 ps2 games i cannot play because they removed that feature that was the main selling point for me. i am suing for unspecified damages.

 

[hemelskonijn]

Not to long ago sony killed CI support in some lines of televisions in favour of CI+ judges ruled that sony was to re release their firmware and re enable CI support people that used a CAM that was not CI+ compatible could not watch tv for about 6 days ... now the cable company will drop CI support making this case semi irrelevant but fact remains judges ruled sony could not remove an advertised feature.

 

[wavebossa]

@VioMeTriX

As someone who was raised in a family of laywers, i can only say this to you... enjoy wasting your time. And while your at it sue creative for removing the ability to record fm radio on their zen, Sony for removing backwards combatablity in 40GB version.

All you'll get is a long explanation why OtherOS somehow, someway or antoher is a problem for everyone. If you actually think you will get a dime out of this, you obviously don't know lawyers, let alone big business lawyers...

 

[wavebossa]

Hemelskonjin and VioMeTriX

You guys are really missing it. Stop thinking of this as Sony waking up one day and deciding to disable OtherOS.

Dont you understand what is going here at all? Sony is going to say "We feel that there are security breaches due to the OtherOS feature that can render a PS3 unusalbe or can lead to the loading of illegal software"

Yada yada yada... Laywers aren't dumb, sony has nothing to worry about from a lawsuit here.

 

[captaincharisma]

well my lawsuit has been signed and they will be served. it is 100% fact that they cannot remove features that came with the system unless they can 100% prove it is going to harm the end users system in some way. this is not the case. they sold it with printed feature, they advertise it with said features. they can only remove it from the slims because to my knowledge it didnt ship with it. also i have over 100 ps2 games i cannot play because they removed that feature that was the main selling point for me. i am suing for unspecified damages.

LMAO well good luck wasting your money trying to win a case where Sony will have the best lawyers in the business.

 

[badaxe2]

[citation][nom]hollowtek[/nom]Ps3 stands for (profit x sony) to the third power.[/citation]

Funny that they're yet to make a profit on PS3 then if that's the case.
Why would anyone want to still run linux on 4 year old hardware anyways?
Besides people can still run linux as long as they don't do a system update. I think the fact that someone cracked the PS3 recently had something to do with removing the "Other OS" features. Could've been a piracy nightmare, which wouldn't be Sony's fault. They probably figured why should they have to deal with that bs.

 

[hemelskonijn]

[citation][nom]wavebossa[/nom]Hemelskonjin and VioMeTriXYou guys are really missing it. Stop thinking of this as Sony waking up one day and deciding to disable OtherOS.Dont you understand what is going here at all? Sony is going to say "We feel that there are security breaches due to the OtherOS feature that can render a PS3 unusalbe or can lead to the loading of illegal software"Yada yada yada... Laywers aren't dumb, sony has nothing to worry about from a lawsuit here.[/citation]

Stop focusing on why they removed it and simply look at the facts that are relevant to any ps3 linux user.(and for that matter any ps3 user (or consumer in general) that wants any protection from future actions)
I dont care why it wont work i care that it wont work and since they sold me a stack of features including OtherOS i do have a case though i have to admit i only have a case in 2/3th of the world since in some area's EULA are taken in consideration.

I think if you would elaborate your post you might have some ground but keep in consideration the above mentioned EULA is not valid in this part of the world and even though they might be within the law there can still be a lot done about unethical business practices.
Of course if a shitload of people sue them they will give in if only half a shitload sues them they will drag it endless and if a few do they will settle.
None of us can fight any corporation specially not a big one like sony but as i mentioned before they lost comparable cases in the past and within a few days they had to turn around in await of the outcome of the case which they later lost. (Disabling the option to use a CI CAM in tv sets that where CI+ ready after they where advertised as both CI and CI+ compatible and many users used CI since there is no intrusive DRM in compare to CI+)

 

[vexun11]

I hope they come out with a new generation of consoles in the next while so that game designers will be able to design games with better graphics to match the next gen consoles and you will be able to really put a 5970 to use with mainstream gaming

 

[somata]

[citation][nom]Hupiscratch[/nom]Could Tom's Hardware put some numbers of GFlops of single-precision computational? And what's the i7 980 performance?[/citation]
Well I could give you a few examples for reference:
Athlon X2 5200+ - (2 cores) * (2 add + 2 muls) * (2.6 GHz) = 20.8 GFLOPS
Core 2 Duo E8400 - (2 cores) * (4 adds + 4 muls) * (3 GHz) = 48 GFLOPS
Core i7 980X - (6 cores) * (4 adds + 4 muls) * (3.33 GHz) = 159.8 GFLOPS
Cell - (1 PPE + 7 SPEs) * (4 madds) * (2 flops/madd) * (3.2 GHz) = 204.8 GFLOPS
Radeon 5870 - (1600 ALUs) * (1 madd) * (2 flops/madd) * (0.85 GHz) = 2720 GFLOPS

Of course, all of the these values are for peak theoretical single-precision computation. Most architectures can achieve close to their peak performance with convolutions or matrix multiplication, but in most real-world applications, achieving even half the peak would be impressive. In many cases, just getting data into the processor fast enough is a bottleneck. Cell largely overcomes this problem by giving each SPE a small amount (256K) of very fast local memory in lieu of a traditional cache. This software-managed memory is what can make the Cell hard to program (as Carmack stated), but also what gives it its impressive performance (and not just theoretically).

I think the Cell was a decent compromise given transistor budgets of the time, but the main thing it's good at (streaming computation) has been encroached on by GPUs. For "general-purpose" code, modern x86 CPUs can run circles around it, so the architecture doesn't really have a clear purpose anymore, which is probably why IBM announced they were abandoning Cell development a while back.

 

[Guest]

The reason we should care is because this sets a precedent. Companies can apparently now remove features from products AFTER you've already bought it. It's be like you buying a car and the manufacturer unilaterally deciding to come in and remove your air conditioning because... someone might use it while speeding. Ridiculous. Apparently not when it comes to Sony.

 

[Shin-san]

Sony started out advertising the PS3 as anything but a console, which I feel is wrong.
[citation][nom]Lendorien[/nom]The reason we should care is because this sets a precedent. Companies can apparently now remove features from products AFTER you've already bought it. It's be like you buying a car and the manufacturer unilaterally deciding to come in and remove your air conditioning because... someone might use it while speeding. Ridiculous. Apparently not when it comes to Sony.[/citation]
I think Microsoft won't be doing this as easily, especially when it comes to XNA. XNA is turning out to be one of their key strategies for markets like Windows Phone.

 

[techguy911]

[citation][nom]somata[/nom]Well I could give you a few examples for reference:Athlon X2 5200+ - (2 cores) * (2 add + 2 muls) * (2.6 GHz) = 20.8 GFLOPSCore 2 Duo E8400 - (2 cores) * (4 adds + 4 muls) * (3 GHz) = 48 GFLOPSCore i7 980X - (6 cores) * (4 adds + 4 muls) * (3.33 GHz) = 159.8 GFLOPSCell - (1 PPE + 7 SPEs) * (4 madds) * (2 flops/madd) * (3.2 GHz) = 204.8 GFLOPSRadeon 5870 - (1600 ALUs) * (1 madd) * (2 flops/madd) * (0.85 GHz) = 2720 GFLOPSOf course, all of the these values are for peak theoretical single-precision computation. Most architectures can achieve close to their peak performance with convolutions or matrix multiplication, but in most real-world applications, achieving even half the peak would be impressive. In many cases, just getting data into the processor fast enough is a bottleneck. Cell largely overcomes this problem by giving each SPE a small amount (256K) of very fast local memory in lieu of a traditional cache. This software-managed memory is what can make the Cell hard to program (as Carmack stated), but also what gives it its impressive performance (and not just theoretically).I think the Cell was a decent compromise given transistor budgets of the time, but the main thing it's good at (streaming computation) has been encroached on by GPUs. For "general-purpose" code, modern x86 CPUs can run circles around it, so the architecture doesn't really have a clear purpose anymore, which is probably why IBM announced they were abandoning Cell development a while back.[/citation]


Cell+ Rsx = 2tf max, in real world i clocked it at 1.3 tf put enough of those in a cluster and you have a major super computer.

Many scientists use ps3 clusters including astrophysicists because it is cost effective, it is much more expensive building a pc and putting in a good video card with a powerful gpu.

Proof that gpu's can crunch numbers better than general purpose cpu's proof is folding@home and badaboom video encoder when i use it on my gtx 280 it renders faster than real time ,faster than any encoder on my quad core cpu.

http://www.physorg.com/news149192580.html

 

[SV_Bubbles]

Would have worked as a media PC if Sony could have gotten the flash emulation right. Worked well for youtube and some other flash video's but anything around 720p was jittery (and I can't use sticks for gaming anyhow).

 

[ErrolDC]

The PS3...it does everything.. INCLUDING PISS IT'S OWNERBASE THE F**** OFF!!!

 

[somata]

[citation][nom]techguy911[/nom]Cell+ Rsx = 2tf max, in real world i clocked it at 1.3 tf put enough of those in a cluster and you have a major super computer.[/citation]
You clocked it at 1.3 TFLOPS, eh? That's funny, because despite Sony's marketing claims, the G70-based RSX peaks around 200 GFLOPS of programmable performance (24 "pipes" times 2 4-way MADD ALUs at 550 MHz). Of course, achieving anywhere close to that in the real-world is well-nigh impossible due to inflexible ALU scheduling and poor dynamic branching. If you'll recall, Folding@Home's DirectX 9-based GPU client started with ATI's Radeon X1800/X1900 hardware (with its superior dynamic branching ability) and never made it to G70/G71-based hardware due to underwhelming performance. Note that the F@H PS3 client uses solely the Cell for computation, because that's the only part that has any value for non-graphics applications.

The 2 TFLOPS Cell+RSX performance Sony initially claimed apparently included the countless fixed-function operations that occur on any GPU, but are never quoted by anyone else. Check the Beyond3D forums if you want more info about this.

 

[TheGman_GL]

Sony really wanted to be different in this generation, had many great projects and really tried to bring to life this perfect console vision. In the end with the current state of the economy I feel Sony worried about the monetary situation of the PS3 project. On lauch they loosed more than 400 dlls per console so they needed to cut back a lot of features to make it more profitable.

(Who was the genius that designed the PS3 with only 256MB RAM?! An epic CPU with a stellar GPU and only 256MB of memory!!!)

 

[Guest]

Eh you guys whine too much.

Stopping piracy is always worth it if it means ensuring that games are of the best quality and developers are attracted to the PS3.

Yeah it sucks you lost the feature, but you're going to have to get used to it. I really think it's just a small minority of people making a mountain out of an anthill.

Seriously, just get over it.