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Smedge on PlayStation 3
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Tue, 22/Sep/2009 9:55 PM |
Robin
1138 Posts
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You may have heard that the PlayStation 3 can run Linux. Well, because it's Linux and because it's a PowerPC chip, both of which Smedge already runs on anyway, I have managed to compile the Linux version of Smedge 3 to run on Linux on a PS3.
Currently, I only have the command line components compiled. There is no technical reason why the GUI components can't also run, but I haven't yet built the cross-platform GUI library that Smedge uses to get this going. I will be working on that more over the next week or so.
In the mean time, if anyone wants to try using their PS3 as an Engine with Smedge, this is now possible. It should show up as just another Linux node. This build will be compatible with the beta 4 release I am going to be making available later tonight or tomorrow.
Please let me know if you are interested.
Thanks
-robin
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Wed, 23/Sep/2009 10:17 AM |
Ralph
2 Posts
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lol - is PS3 that powerfull ?
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Wed, 23/Sep/2009 2:59 PM |
Robin
1138 Posts
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Actually, it has a very fast processor in it, and they just dropped the price here to $300 each. What it doesn't have is much RAM (only 256 MB if I remember right). I'm really not sure what the application would be, but I have had several requests for this over the years and I finally had an opportunity to make it happen. So, well, there it is, in case anyone wants it!
-r
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Thu, 22/Oct/2009 8:40 AM |
Jamie
102 Posts
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If I remember correctly the PS3 Slims' aren't supporting (officially?) any Linux installs where as the original PS3 units do. I'm most interested in this but the fact that there is v.little ram in these units, compared to some pc systems, puts me off.
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Thu, 22/Oct/2009 2:05 PM |
Robin
1138 Posts
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Yes, the newest slim model has removed support for installing Linux, which is a bummer. Additionally, the PS 3 runs a PowerPC based processor, so in order to use anything on it, you need to either have binary executables that have been compiled specifically for this processor, or you need the source code so that you can compile it for yourself.
Specifically, you will not be able to run the Linux build of Maya, for example, because that's compiled for Intel chips, and simply won't run. You could download the source for an open source renderer, like Blender, and compile it to run on the PS3, then use Smedge to control it. The lack of RAM will probably still be an issue even here.
In all honesty, it doesn't look like this is a very useful tool for most people. The most useful feature of Smedge on PS3 is that it can run any arbitrary command line tool. If you have some kind of processing task that you have already been playing with on PS3 hardware, then you can set up Smedge as your queue/distribution system for it. I've heard of some academia people that have put together farms of a dozen PS3s to do specialized processing running custom code.
Beyond that, who knows, especially now that support for installing has been discontinued. I had the opportunity to get it running for one user, and it was a very simple port (since Smedge already ran on Linux and on PowerPC chips). It actually took only 3 lines of code changed to get it to work (out of about 125,000 lines of code total), and 2 of those 3 lines were simply changes to more correct C++ syntax anyway.
If anyone does have something they may want to use their PS3 for, I hope you can post about it here, so we can all learn what use, if any, this tool may provide!
Thanks
-robin
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