LinuxMCE on Playstation 3

[Creighton]

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!

[asgard]

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.

[k84]

Any further process in this?
I'm looking into it myself, would be nice to have lmce running on ps3.

[padrino]

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.

[tsunami78]

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.

[dystopias]

I am also interested in using my ps3 as a hybrid linux mce.  Any updates on this?

[los93sol]

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

[tschak909]

**deep-breath** so just buckle down, get the code, and do it, people!

-Thom

[wombiroller]

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 ;-)

[los93sol]

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.

[wombiroller]

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 

[los93sol]

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?

[tschak909]

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

[los93sol]

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?

[los93sol]

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.