Linux a PS3 option?
Jun 13, 2005 — by Henry Kingman — from the LinuxDevices Archive — views
Sony will position its next-generation gaming console as an “entertainment supercomputer” that can edit videos, manipulate photos, and more, thanks to interchangeable hard drives pre-installed with task-based Linux operating systems of various kinds, according to a Gamespot translation of an interview in a Japanese-language technical magazine.
(Click for larger view of Sony PlayStation 3)
The PS3 will not come stock with a hard drive, but will have an expansion bay supporting removable 2.5-inch drives, Gamespot suggests. Sony will sell drives pre-packaged with Linux operating systems of various kinds, such as video editing and photo studio environments.
The PS3 has USB and RJ-45 Ethernet ports
Gamespot reported nearly two years ago that the PS3's processor — a joint development effort between IBM, Sony, and Toshiba — would likely support Linux. Codenamed Cell, the chip is based on multiple PowerPC cores clocked up to 4GHz, reportedly. It is expected to deliver supercomputer-like floating point performance, something Sony will use Linux to demonstrate, Gamespot says.
Additional points of interest in Gamespot's translation of the Impress PC Watch interview with Sony's Ken Kutaragi include:
- PS3's possible use of “network drive” technology with terabytes of storage — sounds like peer-to-peer filesharing of some kind
- PS3 games will include secondary OSes as well as applications
- Windows and Mac OS X could theoretically run on the PS3
- Linux will be a “legacy” PS3 OS likely to be superceded
- Why the PS3's user interface will evolve rapidly
Find out more about the PS3's upcoming Linux option by reading the complete interview translation at Gamespot.
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.