Posted on 11/09/2010 7:46:10 PM PST by SunkenCiv
“I think I’ll hop on the PS3”
Hop? Is that a beer joke now? ;’)
Speaking of the PS3, do you have one of the older ones that can have Linux installed on it? I seriously considered getting one of those instead of the BluRay player, because A) it has a BluRay built-in (as do the new PS3s); B) it is a game system, which could become important from time to time; C) it can run Folding@Home all the time I’m not using it for other stuff, and D) it would have served as a new CPU, running Linux. Ah well.
Wow!
We need to send him there to check on it. One way.
Yo quiero Enceladus.
I guess he really was “foiled again”. ;’)
Yes, actually you CAN run Linux on it. There’s a flavor of Linux called ‘Yellow Dog’ that was developed for it. I tried it once, but the partition ate up too much HD space for my liking(I only have a 40). I’ve also heard of other OSs being installed on the PS3. I haven’t looked into it much.
Well, just damn.....
I just did some reading and found that Sony removed the ability to install operating systems on ALL PS3s with a system update earlier this year.
I went in and check, and sure enough the “Install Other OS” was removed as an option.
That sucks! I never used it much, but it was nice having the option there to use it as a networkable ‘computer’.
Oh well.....
They neither warned anyone about that, nor gave any explanation as to why they were doing it. Crippled not only the PS3, but also all future sales of all Sony products, in particular their game systems. Complete idiocy.
Yeah, the Yellow Dog Linux used to be front-and-center on the website of the company which had produced it; then Sony did its move, and YD was moved off somewhere, and the product line (Cell processor upgrade and co-processor boards) went with it. I haven’t checked in a while.
Probably a rare scenario, but just imagine if someone would have had a PS3 with an OS installed with very important or even sentimental data saved. That update would have wiped out everything they had. That can get rather serious for some people. I’ve worked on computers for folks who have a dead machine. Literally every photo they have of their kids from birth is stored on the HD, and they have no backups.
Quietly releasing an update that could wipe data isn’t something Sony should have taken so lightly.
They should have at least warned people. What they did was ruthless. I doubt I would have installed the update, because I at least liked having the option to install an OS, even though I wasn’t doing so at the time. (you can’t have too many computers in the house, IMO)
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