Ubuntu on the PS3

mep916

mep916

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Staff member
Has anyone done this?

In the current issue of Maximum PC, they have a pretty straight forward installation guide; it looks pretty easy. My storage space is already pretty limited (I've the 40 gig model), and you're suppose to set aside 10 gigs for the secondary OS partition, so I'll have to delete some stuff and maybe sacrifice a game or two.

In the guide, they say you will lose all your saved games, even when you backup the OS. Does anyone know a workaround for this? I don't really want to lose my Gran Turismo and GTA4 save game data...

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/howtos/howto_install_ubuntu_and_ubuntu_apps_your_playstation_3
 
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I installed Xubuntu on my PS3, backed up all my data onto a flash drive I had laying around. After the install, restored it all back and it worked fine. The only data that would be lost is the system settings like your wifi/network settings, themes, junk like that.

I recommend you take a look at this guide, it is made by a community of ps3 ubuntu users.
http://psubuntu.com/wiki/InstallationInstructions

I will warn you, due to the limitations artificially put on it by Sony, it will run slowly, many have compared the speed of Linux of PS3 to that of a Pentium 3 CPU. You won't be doing anything overly interesting on it. The firefox browser surprisingly works better in Linux than the actual PS3 browser though.
 
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This is very doable. Also, upgrading the hard drive on a PS3 is extremely simple. I'm up to a 320GB drive on mine right now.

You can easily backup your saved games without a full system backup. You can stick in a memory card (if you have one of the models with the reader built in) or a USB flash drive or hard drive and copy all your save files over to it. When you wipe and redo the drive partitions, just copy the save files back.

You will not loose your save games when you backup your complete system and then restore it anyway. The article is just talking about the fact that when you reformat and repartition your drive, you will loose all data on it. Hence why they recommend doing the system backup then restore.

I recently went through the backup and restore when upgrading from the 80 to the 320GB drive (just before 500GB 7200RPM drives came out too...). It take a while as the backup process compresses all your PS3 drive's data, but everything works just fine.


Edit: Gamerman beat me to it. I had all my themes restored upon the system restore. The only thing that was missing were, as you mentioned, the networking and some preference settings. Oh, and all the trophies disappeared from the list until you re-synced them and/or ran the games once. All that data is stored remotely anyway.


Edit2: Oh, and the article is wrong about the PS3 not accepting 7200RPM drives. They work just fine. You just won't see much of a speed difference in most operations - even with flash drives. Now...to pop the little bare Velociraptor 300GB 10,000RPM drive in there for fun... I'm not sure which would cook first, the PS3 or the drive. ;)
 
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Whats the point, or are you doing this to rip Bluray to your PS3? Just curious. I mean you can install Linux on a wrist watch, but that doesn't make it practical.
 
I put it on mine, except i used yellowdog(the "recommended" version by sony) linux, and its pretty sweet, and really easy. I just wish that they would unrestrict access to the rsx.
 
bomberboysk said:
I put it on mine, except i used yellowdog(the "recommended" version by sony) linux, and its pretty sweet, and really easy. I just wish that they would unrestrict access to the rsx.
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yellow dog is a PPC based linux distro I use it on my older Macs not a bad Linux distro at all.
 
tlarkin said:
Whats the point, or are you doing this to rip Bluray to your PS3? Just curious. I mean you can install Linux on a wrist watch, but that doesn't make it practical.
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why do u have to be so negative. we dont care if u think its practical or not, he clearly asked a ?. and your response did not provide any type of help.

My buddy did this on his 40gig but before we did it we upgraded his hd to 250 and made sure all the saves worked on the new hd before attempting the linux setup. From what i understand he used a memory card or flash drive to back up the important game saves he wanted. Afterwards he copied them back everything worked fine i would follow the guide that was posted by gamerman.
 
tlarkin said:
Whats the point, or are you doing this to rip Bluray to your PS3? Just curious. I mean you can install Linux on a wrist watch, but that doesn't make it practical.
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3 words, "because we can"

Many stupid things have been done just because they could be done.
At least Linux on a PS3 is semi-useful, like a VM of OSx86. Sure it works, just not well. Being practical is not how interesting things get done. Hardly anything in the enthusiast computer world is practical. Using LN2 to cool a CPU so you can overclock it is not practical but it is still awesome. At least in mep's case, he really has nothing to lose by doing this, it isn't a dangerous procedure, just simple fun. I have linux still on my PS3, I haven't booted to it in months but the week that I did it, I messed around and had fun. It was useless but an interesting experience and I'm glad I did it.
Now for something truly useless, Windows 98 has been put on a PSP...
 
JlCollins005 said:
why do u have to be so negative. we dont care if u think its practical or not, he clearly asked a ?. and your response did not provide any type of help.

My buddy did this on his 40gig but before we did it we upgraded his hd to 250 and made sure all the saves worked on the new hd before attempting the linux setup. From what i understand he used a memory card or flash drive to back up the important game saves he wanted. Afterwards he copied them back everything worked fine i would follow the guide that was posted by gamerman.
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Hmm you must need a reading comprehension lesson. I said I was just curious as to why, like I was wondering what the benefit was if there was any?

There is no need to be over sensitive, and I was in no way being negative.

Now for something truly useless, Windows 98 has been put on a PSP...
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Don't do it dude, or if you do at least post pics of the BSODs you get!
 
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gamerman4 said:
The only data that would be lost is the system settings like your wifi/network settings, themes, junk like that.

I recommend you take a look at this guide, it is made by a community of ps3 ubuntu users.
http://psubuntu.com/wiki/InstallationInstructions
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link. In the Max PC article, they say wi Fi was difficult to get up and running and they recommend a hard wire connection from the router. If you get wi fi running, they say WEP encryiption is best. Is any of this true?

gamerman4 said:
The firefox browser surprisingly works better in Linux than the actual PS3 browser though.
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Ha, yeah, the PS3 web browser is crap. Never use it.

Zatharus said:
This is very doable. Also, upgrading the hard drive on a PS3 is extremely simple. I'm up to a 320GB drive on mine right now.

...recently went through the backup and restore when upgrading from the 80 to the 320GB drive (just before 500GB 7200RPM drives came out too...). It take a while as the backup process compresses all your PS3 drive's data, but everything works just fine.
Click to expand...

I'd like to do this too. You wanna walk me through it or link me to a good guide?

Zatharus said:
Now...to pop the little bare Velociraptor 300GB 10,000RPM drive in there for fun... I'm not sure which would cook first, the PS3 or the drive. ;)
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lol

tlarkin said:
Whats the point, or are you doing this to rip Bluray to your PS3? Just curious. I mean you can install Linux on a wrist watch, but that doesn't make it practical.
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No point really. Seen the article and thought it would be fun to try it. It would be cool to have a fully functioning web browser in my living room, and I never even thought of the Blu ray idea. If that's possible, that would be another good reason.

JlCollins005 said:
why do u have to be so negative. we dont care if u think its practical or not, he clearly asked a ?. and your response did not provide any type of help.
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I don't think he's being negative. It was a fair question.

Excellent posts guys. Thanks for the info. ;)
 
Yes you can rip bluray disks with Linux. In fact I remember that bluray was cracked with in a few days of someone loading Linux on a PS3.

Yellow Dog is a cool distro and if you have ever used a redhat based Linux distro you probably have used YUM before, which is YellowDog Update Manager, which is their package manager. It is kind of cool if I recall. Been a while since I ever loaded Linux on a Mac though, and I don't have any other PPC hardware lying around anymore.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/BluRayAndHDDVD

http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/2006/11/30/rip-blu-ray-movie-discs-with-your-new-playstation-3/

Of course once you rip the blu ray disk you would need to transfer it to your computer and then burn it to a blu ray disk, or just keep the massive image file it would create since blu ray can be up to 50gigs.
 
tlarkin said:
Yes you can rip bluray disks with Linux. In fact I remember that bluray was cracked with in a few days of someone loading Linux on a PS3.

Yellow Dog is a cool distro and if you have ever used a redhat based Linux distro you probably have used YUM before, which is YellowDog Update Manager, which is their package manager. It is kind of cool if I recall. Been a while since I ever loaded Linux on a Mac though, and I don't have any other PPC hardware lying around anymore.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/BluRayAndHDDVD

http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/2006/11/30/rip-blu-ray-movie-discs-with-your-new-playstation-3/

Of course once you rip the blu ray disk you would need to transfer it to your computer and then burn it to a blu ray disk, or just keep the massive image file it would create since blu ray can be up to 50gigs.
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Awesome. Yeah, I'd put at least a 500 gig drive in if I do the swap. With storage being so cheap nowadays, might as well put something in that can handle those large files. Right now I'm only using about 34 gigs of the space allotted on the current HD, so most of the storage space could be set aside for media.
 
You know this reminds me of a XKCD comic that shows a guy loading Linux on everything, even a toilet! HA!
 
mep916 said:
I'd like to do this too. You wanna walk me through it or link me to a good guide?
Click to expand...

No problem, upgrading the HD on a PS3 can be done with the following simple steps.

1) Run the system backup to an external USB drive. You can find this under the System menu in the XMB. WARNING! DO NOT modify the backup files. This will invalidate the PS3's backup file and the system will not allow you to restore it. Also, make sure your Trophy information has been synced to the PSN before you wipe your system. This backup procedure will NOT backup Trophies.

2) Purchase a 2.5" SATA drive. A few recommendations if I may: here and here.

3) With the full system backup complete, turn off, unplug and flip up the PS3 so you can see the drive caddy on the side/bottom of the unit. You should see an "HDD" sticker. Simply pop off the cover to reveal the drive caddy.

4) Unscrew the single screw holding it in.

5) Pull out the drive caddy with the little wire handle. The drive will slide to the right to disconnect from the SATA connectors first, then you can pull the whole caddy out.

6) Unscrew the existing drive. Set it aside. Pop it into an external USB case if you want a spare. :)

7) Slide the shiny new drive into the caddy and screw it in place.

8) Insert the caddy into the PS3 and slide it to the left to secure the connection.

9) Screw in the caddy's single screw again and then re-attach the plastic cover.

10) Plug in and turn on the PS3. It will recognize the new drive and ask you to format/prep the drive.

11) Once that is completed, set up the drive partitions the way you want for Linux.

12) Perform the system restore from your backup file on the USB drive.

You are done! Enjoy the new large capacity drive and prepare for the anger/envy of XBox 360 owners who paid much, much more for their 120GB drive than you did for your 320GB drive (and the 500GB drive is at a close enough price point itself). ;)
 
Zatharus said:
Is this what you were thinking of? It's not XKCD though.

"I have to go serve some serious files...in the bathroom."
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WOW! LOL that was totally it. I totally forgot completely about that video and some how transferred that forgotten memory into an XKCD comic.....

well played
 
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