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General => Users => Topic started by: Creighton on March 29, 2007, 05:35:54 am

Title: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: Creighton on March 29, 2007, 05:35:54 am
I just found out about LinuxMCE and it seems really great! I was wondering if anyone could give me any information on installing LinuxMCE on the Playstation 3 in order to have a functional media center-like front end to it. I'm surprised it hasn't been done yet, as I have been looking for something similar since day one. (I was recently looking on building my own linux distro when I came across this.)

There's a guide out to install Ubuntu onto the PS3 via a Gentoo ppc livecd beta here: http://www.louiscandell.com/ps3/

And since LinuxMCE installs overtop of Ubuntu, I was wondering if this would actually work. I'm very new to linux, but my roommate is pretty good with it so there are definitely some options here. (I just need to know where to get started and if this is actually possible.)

Thanks!
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: asgard on March 30, 2007, 12:14:46 am
Is not so simple to do it yourself since you need to recompile everything for the PPC platform. For now only x86 is supported by LinuxMCE. You can start reading this wiki page : http://wiki.linuxmce.com/index.php/Building_From_Source if you decide to try.
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: k84 on July 08, 2007, 06:17:52 pm
Any further process in this?
I'm looking into it myself, would be nice to have lmce running on ps3.
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: padrino on July 08, 2007, 07:01:15 pm
I just found out about LinuxMCE and it seems really great! I was wondering if anyone could give me any information on installing LinuxMCE on the Playstation 3 in order to have a functional media center-like front end to it. I'm surprised it hasn't been done yet, as I have been looking for something similar since day one. (I was recently looking on building my own linux distro when I came across this.)

There's a guide out to install Ubuntu onto the PS3 via a Gentoo ppc livecd beta here: http://www.louiscandell.com/ps3/

And since LinuxMCE installs overtop of Ubuntu, I was wondering if this would actually work. I'm very new to linux, but my roommate is pretty good with it so there are definitely some options here. (I just need to know where to get started and if this is actually possible.)

Thanks!

If your goal is the same as mine, to use it as a media front end you can take advantage of the 1.8 firmware addition of DLNA media streaming and use a Core/Hybrid to service your PS3. I built a Hybrid LinuxMCE box to service my bedroom and then compiled an SVN version of Myth with uPnP streaming and the PS3 will see it and access it.
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: tsunami78 on August 12, 2007, 09:49:14 pm
Has anyone had any luck getting LMCE running natively on the PS3?  I would prefer not to convert all of my media to PS3 compatible formats, and having a full blown LMCE installation on my PS3 would be an ideal solution to several needs I have.
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: dystopias on June 12, 2008, 07:13:01 pm
I am also interested in using my ps3 as a hybrid linux mce.  Any updates on this?
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: los93sol on June 18, 2008, 09:57:47 pm
It seems like an ideal platform to work on, it would make a very nice client box with wifi, bluetooth, 1080p, and hdmi out of the box for about $400...it is a relatively small form factor already and could be tucked away out of sight fairly easily for most installations.  Anyone care enough to justify setting up an SF project for this?  I know I'd rather spend $400 for each box that I can just install and go with for all my clients and only have to custom build my CORE server to be the beast that handles it all.

-Los93sol
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: tschak909 on June 18, 2008, 10:24:09 pm
**deep-breath** so just buckle down, get the code, and do it, people!

-Thom
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: wombiroller on June 19, 2008, 02:31:34 am
Probably worth highlighting the fact that PS3 isn't very efficient in the power usage category. Environmental impacts aside;

http://au.gamespot.com/news/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=26421252
Report: PS3 power-hungrier than five fridges

"...leaving your PS3 on when you're not gaming can cost you A$250 ($239) a year in electricity bills..." (expect this figure will only go up with rising energy costs)

"...The PS3, while on and running a game, consumes some 33.34kWh weekly--equivalent to around A$5 ($4.79). When on but idle, it uses almost as much, sapping 31.74kWh, or A$4.76 ($4.56). When the machine was off (with the back switch on), power usage plummeted to 0.30kWh, or A$0.04 ($0.04) a week..."

So unless you can get some nifty way to boot on LAN and leave it in standby (good luck with that) it'll be consuming allot of power as a Hybrid/Core.

Also no were to put TV Cards ;-)
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: los93sol on June 19, 2008, 03:51:24 am
Um, that's probably an erroneous post as there are plenty of power saving options in linux which could improve the power efficiency over the PS3 playing games and running the standard XMB.  Also, I posted about using it as a client only, specifying backend things like TV tuners would be handled on a seperate core.  Anyways, mute point really, I'm going to attempt getting this going, I'll post back when it fails and hopefully I can get some pointers from people interested in helping.  I'm a linux noob and not much for coding, but I'm going to have a crack at it anyway.
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: wombiroller on June 19, 2008, 04:59:55 am
Um, that's probably an erroneous post as there are plenty of power saving options in linux which could improve the power efficiency over the PS3 playing games and running the standard XMB.  Also, I posted about using it as a client only, specifying backend things like TV tuners would be handled on a seperate core.  Anyways, mute point really, I'm going to attempt getting this going, I'll post back when it fails and hopefully I can get some pointers from people interested in helping.  I'm a linux noob and not much for coding, but I'm going to have a crack at it anyway.
Granted if you're using it as an MD it isn't so much of an issue. I'd also accept the power consumption should go down a if the RSX is disabled and running a different OS. Had not thought of this but it is pretty obvious I guess. How much it goes down in reality would be interesting...

BTW - don't get me wrong. I hope you succeed - I have a PS3 so would be interested in giving it a go at some point if others can do the leg work  ;)
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: los93sol on June 19, 2008, 05:19:40 pm
There is a Kubuntu 7.10 distro for the PS3 available, I started downloading that last night and will hopefully have that portion of it at least running tonight.  As I understand it though, there are still issues just with the OS part that need to be taken care of such as using the built in wifi of the PS3.  I don't know much about compiling under Linux and for different processors, etc., but I assume if the hardware is working properly with the OS that the support from the application will work fine as well once compiled for the cell processor, is that correct or am I looking at having to rewrite portions of the code to support the PS3?
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: tschak909 on June 19, 2008, 05:29:07 pm
Since the PowerPC has its byte order swapped (endianness), the LinuxMCE code base needs to be audited to look for assumptions on byte order. I do know some of the DCE libraries needed to be patched to work on big-endian systems.

-Thom
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: los93sol on June 22, 2008, 12:52:07 am
The good news is I have 7.10 installed on my console, but I haven't started with LMCE yet, I'm curious as to whether or not I should update to 8.04, it apparently resolves quite a few limitations of running Linux on the PS3, but I'm not sure if it will possibly open another can of worms with getting LMCE to compile.  I'm going to do some research on the information you've provided Thom.  In the meantime can someone give some feedback as to whether or not 804 is a bad idea?
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: los93sol on June 22, 2008, 01:17:49 am
A side note, anyone with experience in this sort of thing, I'm willing to grant remote access to this box to anyone who wants to help get this going.  I honestly don't know what I'm doing when it comes to Linux, but from my research so far I think I'm the only one attempting to get this going so that said, remote access to this box for anyone with experience who thinks they can help/wants to help.
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: los93sol on June 22, 2008, 05:38:25 pm
Update:  I updated the kernel to 2.6.25.4 and it resolved all of the immediate issues I was having, I've got built-in Wifi working, I've got Bluetooth working, the SIXAXIS controller is working wirelessly, the system is outputting 1080p in full screen, etc.  The hardware is working nicely on it's own with just kubuntu so now it's time to start fumbling through building lmce.

I'm currently waiting for the sources to finish checking out, once this finishes I have no idea what to do next so I guess I'm going to attempt to start compiling as per the instructions on the wiki and see where the error messages are popping up.
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: los93sol on June 22, 2008, 10:12:08 pm
I need some guidance on this, I really don't know where to start, what commands to be running, etc.  Attempting to follow the guide here: http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Building_From_Source is failing miserably for me with more errors than I could fit in a thread.  It almost looks like the guide is outdated as it's failing on things like copying files from the tree with file does not exist, etc.  I'm willing to try and willing to do some learning for this, but I'm really at the mercy of the Linux gurus as this whole linux business is quite new to me and I'm on an incredibly steep learning curve right now.  Anyone please have some guidance on what commands to be running and I can post errors, etc.  I'm really just trying to get this project rolling since it seemed like there was an incredible amount of interest, but yet nobody attempting to get it going, just a lot of talk about how cool it would be.  So, there's my speil, at the very least nobody can say I'm not giving it an honest try.  :)
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: digilifellc on October 30, 2008, 10:19:00 pm
I just discovered this thread. What about installing LinuxMCE on a 32GB or greater USB drive and use the drive for not just HD space, but for RAMdrive as well? Partitions could be:

4GB RAMdrive
4GB HD swap
24GB HD storage for LinuxMCE

This way you wouldn't have to reformat the PS3's hard drive at all and unplugging the USB drive will take the entire LinuxMCE OS with it.

I know that flash drives are not typically used for RAM, but in the case of the PS3's inability to upgrade its internal RAM, and the increased write cycle life of flash drives, it's a reproducible investment worth trying at $180 for at least 5 years.

The only contingency is an alternative install CD (for low RAM) for LinuxMCE to install from.

Going back to using the established way to install Ubuntu onto a PS3, it is suggested to use the 2 CD set to install from when installing onto an established Kubuntu computer. I would personally hope that the available RAM will be sufficient to allow the install to complete, even though the wiki says that 256MB RAM is sufficient to use LinuxMCE.

A better question is if the PS3 can PXE boot, then we wouldn't have to install LinuxMCE in the first place!
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: digilifellc on October 30, 2008, 10:42:51 pm
Or you can upgrade the hard drive altogether and increase the swap partition on the hard drive...
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: tschak909 on October 30, 2008, 11:30:04 pm
The system still needs to be ported to ppc cell. Our build system would support the concept of this, but you would need to put a nice chunk of ram and disk in a ps3 if you wanted to compile everything.

If anyone is serious about wanting to push this forward, ask in the chat.

-Thom
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: qvindesland on March 27, 2009, 08:14:08 pm
Well since it is a ppc then you could also try out the lx86 from IBM, it becomes a 86 based installation on an excising ppc install, works really well but I am unsure how it would work out on a different distro then redhat, ok granted I am a noob when it comes down to ps3 but I would have liked to see linuxmce working on a ps3.

I have some install files for lx86 so I would not mind giving it a go if I can get my hands on a ps3

More info about the lx86 is here:
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/software/virtualization/editions/lx86/index.html

Per
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: hari on March 28, 2009, 01:12:36 am
i'd assume the emulation layer would create additional overhead. Memory is quite limited on the PS3.
If one is serious about running pieces of lmce on the ps3 fix endianess in SerializeClass. It is not hard. Then compile on the ps3 (and be _really_ patient) or cross compile (welcome in the dependency hell) or compile on a ppc linux box with more mem.

br Hari
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: Seer on March 28, 2009, 05:10:49 am
If your goal is the same as mine, to use it as a media front end you can take advantage of the 1.8 firmware addition of DLNA media streaming and use a Core/Hybrid to service your PS3. I built a Hybrid LinuxMCE box to service my bedroom and then compiled an SVN version of Myth with uPnP streaming and the PS3 will see it and access it.

I don't mean to needlessly repeat the above, but I've been doing this for a little while now.  I don't even have an MD (yet!) in my living room, but I've been enjoying a single place to stream all my media.  I have to admit that I did install ps3mediaserver to augment the transcoding of my mkv anime files, but I've been lovin' DLNA for quite some time now.  Granted, it doesn't have the HA stuff, but media should be taken care of using FUPPES, or MediaTomb, or ps3mediaserver.

BTW, good luck with that PPC conversion!  I hope you can make it work.
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: qvindesland on March 28, 2009, 09:40:55 am
Well here is the beauty of lx86 it has extremely little overhead, we use it a production envinroment for our servers for some of our legacy x86 apps and we could never see any performance decrees we actually got a far better performance, ok granted we went from a 64 bit x86 plattform to a risc ppc 64 so yes on all levels there where performance increase but we where afraid that lx86 would be a bottleneck but no not at all, since it don't work on the same way as vmware or other virtual systems, it installs it self as a second os under /x86 with it's own kernel and libs.

Will give it a go if I can get my hands on a ps3

Per
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: phenigma on March 29, 2009, 04:34:37 pm
I setup up kubuntu 8.10 on my ps3 last night and attempted to setup an lmce0810 build environment.  Created a conf folder for the ppc arch and began grab -dev packages.  Lots of unmet dependencies in -dev packages due to versioning and the kernel packages do not all align (no source for the installed kernel).  I'll play with it for a little while and see what happens.
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: domotiqa.com on April 12, 2009, 10:21:08 am
did you see that:

http://www.libsdl.org/cgi/viewvc.cgi/branches/SDL-1.2/README.PS3?view=markup&pathrev=44

look interesting for the future
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: andybrauer on April 13, 2009, 05:43:25 pm
This does take quite some time. I have used http://sourceforge.net/projects/inversendian/
The only issue out standing now is the /usr/pluto/install database_initial_data.sql file which need to come from the pluto site and add the code and device to the data base
I have a built pluto intall .deb for the (PS3)
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: los93sol on April 13, 2009, 08:27:40 pm
Are you saying that you have a PS3 running as a MD?  What purpose does /usr/pluto/install database_initial_data.sql serve?
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: domotiqa.com on April 16, 2009, 04:05:15 pm
I have a built pluto intall .deb for the (PS3)

share !!! share !!
 ;)
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: los93sol on April 16, 2009, 09:41:10 pm
Yes, please do, I'd like to test this.
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: tailspower2001 on August 13, 2009, 12:56:31 am
I don't know if the if Sony's version for sell at www.yellowdoglinux.com supports Linux MCE; but the PS3 version if Kubuntu does; if compiled for it. It's not on the Ubuntu site so you have to Google it.   

Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: tailspower2001 on August 13, 2009, 01:51:24 am
I forgot to add I don't think you need to install any software on the PS3 to use LinuxMCE, I think this because my X-BOX 360 was set-up doring the LinuxMCE install; It saw it and installed all the tools needed for Windows Media Center Extenders.   
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: niz23 on August 13, 2009, 08:27:48 am
What are you talking about?

Perhaps you mean that the Xbox360 can see music, videos etc that we stream from our upnp(MediaTomb) server in lmce.

And re kubuntu on the ps3. It won´t work with lmce unless you recompile the lmce parts you need for powerpc(Cell) architecture.
So far there have been some discussion about it noone have ever done a working PoC.

/niz23

I forgot to add I don't think you need to install any software on the PS3 to use LinuxMCE, I think this because my X-BOX 360 was set-up doring the LinuxMCE install; It saw it and installed all the tools needed for Windows Media Center Extenders.   
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: gollywog on August 13, 2009, 09:36:21 am
Does anyone have a old G4 mac floating around? They are PPC, maybe you could compile the source on that?

Cheers

Gollywog
Title: Re: LinuxMCE on Playstation 3
Post by: hari on August 13, 2009, 09:24:48 pm
it also needs endian fixing in serializeclass. When you do that please also fix alignment, that would help on ARM :-) Cross compiling alone is not sufficient. Be aware that Orbiter and related programs for the MD have a huge dependency list.

br, Hari