PS3's, Walkman's, Window's, & Linux. The Quadrangle of Bad Communication.. Linux Wins.
m0rnin
s000, after having so much time to test out the capabilities of my PS3, I have decided to post here a few of my experiences.
So before Christmas in 2008, I won this prize pack, with an 80GB PS3, 8GB Sony Walkman MP4 player, a Sony Cybershot 10.1MP camera (T77), and some Sony Noise Cancelling Earbuds ( which I promptly gave to d00dism, as an early birthday present.) Obviously it was a Sony prize pack.
I had tried installing Linux onto the console many many months ago now, with no success, and I had kind of given up on the venture for the time being, but I however had given it another try a few weeks ago, and was semi successful ( linux must be the only operating system that STILL WORKS after you cancel the installation at 86% xD hehe.) Despite that, it worked.. However it verry quickly became apparant why its just not viable for use as an alternate operating system or PC.. 256MB of RAM, which is what the PS3 has yes, just doesn’t really cut it in that respect. Yes it runs, yes you can do sh!t with it, but it feels like running a computer back in the late 90’s, it is just not comfortable at all! But really, if you can get past that, you could run it in the background as a download box I guess.. When it comes to all the little things to do, the PS3 itself with its Xross Media Bar (XMB) is fairly adequate, forgetting viewing documents (about the only thing that I really wanted the Linux for on the console anyway..), and some limitations to the internet client, it does what it needs to do, and does it surprisingly well given its lean diet of physical memory.
But anyway, to the point at hand..
I have been using my MP4 player as a USB drive. Dumb dumb DUMB yes I know, but I just havnt gone and picked up a proper USB stick yet ( remembers being the only person back in the day at tafe with a USB stick… a 56MB usb stick.. but hey!!). Its only USB v1.1, so its extra slow for porting files too and from the console, but it gets there in the end.. Mostly.. Some files, im guessing because of their great individual file sizes, donot show up on the computer. One example is a video file format copied from a friends PS3. Althought it doesnt it play on the MP4 player itself, the player can see it, but not player it, and when connected to my PS3, can see it fine, copy it fine, and play it fine, however the PC (Windows XP32), cannot, and so, cannot be copied to the PC.
Now also, stretching the capabilities of the console, ive found ive been able to goto websites like say, MediaWatch, and download their pod/vodcasts directly onto the PS3 console & its HDD. The file I tested played ofcourse, the playback was slightly faster then it should have been, but watchable and not too chipmunky, im really not sure if the people uploading the latest episode had made a mistake, or what, but still, it worked, and its good to know that you can download and archive such things directly on the console. I also last night, tested downloading a non PS3 supported file format, which could be anything really, howver this was the second part of the scenery pack for FlightGear (http://games.on.net/file/24476/FlightGear_Scenery_v1.0.1_Part_2_of_6), which I guess is a rar file, or rar.part file or something like that, definately not something the PS3 wants to run ofcourse..
I was able to download it through the USB, but it would not allow me to send the file to the PS3’s hard drive, only to a storage location, eg, USB Stick or External HDD.
Which I did, just fine, the download took about 4hours, and was saved to the MP4 player, but just like the other large video file format, I was unable to “find” it anywhere, not in the players own browser, and not by using windows either. =)
Soo, I set about trying a few file recovery programs, Recuva being the first, and probably the best, however it would not recognise my “iPod” or other USB thingo as being connected, and so couldn’t run a recovery on that anyway. Same with the other few recovery tools I quickly tried, just couldnt “scan” the USB/MP4 player with it, because it couldnt find it.. bah
And ofcourse, amongst all of this, I think, why don’t I try it in linux? So I criss cross over to Mandriva, plug in my MP4 player, and right away, no problems connecting, and I was able to browse and find the “missing/hidden” files, and copy them to the PC.
Morale of the story is.. Windows sucks.
Comments
Yell0w d0g
I hear Yellow Dog Linux was especially made to suit the PS3
How To Here
Mandriva 4 the Win……
Talking Mandriva the 2010.1 versi0n is nearly here ETA: 03/06/2010
I can’t wait to run it as my final Linux as it really will B awsum……
n0mad
+1
I dislike windows for more reasons than I like it.
I’ve tried a few now, and I love my Ubuntu box to bits. I can run GNOME on my 512MB or RAM with no laggyness. I have an 800MHz processor (Pentium III), and some no name graphics card I found in a dumpster (seriously, there were two!). I had to remove the network card, and more the RAM around a little, but it fits!
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