Is PS/3 as Flexible as x86? Will it support all Linux apps?

[richardmoss]

I've been hesitating for a couple months over buying the PS/3. (Issues about USB printer support & HDMI video output). But there are also substantive concens over software choices

Terrasoft provides list of applications--featured, included, & c. But it's not clear to me whether all Linux apps would run on the Cell processor in PS/3. Should I assume I'd be able to run WINE, even if it's not included in a distribution. Would I be able to run whatever I find on Freshmeat that is "Linux" compliant? And--in the alternative--must I use whatever is in the distribution? For example, could I substitute a lean desktop--XFCE, for gnome?

Apologies for not being able to frame a more precise question, but the gist is: is a PS3 Linux box likely to be as flexible as x86 Intel/AMD desktop?

Many thanks,

Richard Moss

[corsair]

short answer: no

The Playstation 3 has a Cell Processor as you already mentioned. This processor is PowerPC based and so you are unable to run *any* x86 binaries (that is: code compiled for Intel/AMD/Via processors). It is not possible to run Windows based games using WINE. There are also some open source applications poorly written or specially written for x86 that cannot be compiled on PowerPC.

That all sounds bad, but it does not have to be. Most popular open source applications *do* work just fine. Take a look at packages.gentoo.org. There are hundreds of programs marked stable for either ppc or ppc64 (ppc tends to have more applications marked stable, but ppc64 is keeping up). If a program is not keyworded for ppc(64) then this means most of the times, that no one has tried them so far and it's likely it will run just fine.

There are also some hardware limitations of the Playstation 3: It comes with only 256 MB RAM. That's not much for todays applications...

regards,

-corsair

[mra]

Hi !
Since the PS3's CPU is not a x86, you can't run Wine on it. However, you could run qemu (but with 256Mo RAM, don't expect good performance with windows >= windows98) : you can play diablo I, launch office 97, etc... but no recent 3d gaming. Better to use equivalent unix apps instead.
Futhermore, you will be able to run lot of apps, but not all : sometime, devs assume wrong things (OS==linux (which is not a problem if you want linux on your PS3), sizeof(pointer)==sizeof(int), byte order==little endian, and so on), or put assembler code (for x86 only) without C replacement. So, don't expect running all of linux compliant apps.
Yes, you could use gnome, but it is RAM hungry.
Good luck.
mra
(please forgive my terrible english)

[richardmoss]

Thank you both for drawing a bright line on differences between x86 Linux and IBM/Cell PS3. It's better for me to build out a linux desktop that's "open" to many distributions--like Sabyon and which can evolve in time. Years back I found the locked, proprietary aspect of Apple Mac & iBook frustrating. Really didn't like visiting the Genuis bar.

Many thanks,

Richard