I' ve been pretty busy these days, getting Ubuntu installed into my PS3. Its a neat little feature, though there is still a lot of work to be done on the behalf of the Ubuntu community and on behalf of Sony who has made some really screwy decisions.

First up you have to format the harddrive (im utilizing a 250gp Hitachi Travelmaster, if you want to change it make sure its not a 7200rpm as they grow alot hotter than the 5400rpms) Sony only gives you the option of giving 10gb to either linux or the PS3, and the rest goes towards the other option, you cant go 50/50 or utilize it anyway you want.

Installing Ubuntu, once you locate the right image is pretty straight up, installing different packages is pretty neat and easy as well. I even found ScummVM for those old adventure games, it works perfectly, Beneath a Steel Sky, is even located in it for free!

I installed VLC for video playback, but currently the DivX movies look horrible pixelated, so im working to fix that problem at the moment.

Im a linux noob so its trial and error for me.

If anyone is intretested, ill upload the ISO image i used, i write down a quick installation guide.

I' m interested, but have no PS3, so I' ll hold off on an ISO or guide.

How' s the performance for 198/256Mb of RAM? (I know YDL could only access 198, I figure that' d be the same for Ubuntu).

Performance is decent/on the slowside, YDL was far worse than Ubuntu (i tried YDL first).

Videoplay back is pretty fluent, though optimizing is being worked at, it shouldnt be that hard, since my old Xbox Running XBMC with 64 runs everything smoothly.

Also homebrew is being designed so they can utilize the rest of the ram for either system processes or even for accelerated graphics.

In anycase the PS3 should have been designed like the 360 with shared Ram!

Agreed, but that would' ve hoiked up the price even further. It was done that way (so far as I know) so they only had to use 256mb of GDDR3 for RSX, and could use less expensive XDR for Cell. (perhaps it' s the other way around though, pricewise, I never can remember).

Agreed, but that would' ve hoiked up the price even further. It was done that way (so far as I know) so they only had to use 256mb of GDDR3 for RSX, and could use less expensive XDR for Cell. (perhaps it' s the other way around though, pricewise, I never can remember).

Yeah everything is price! While a neat feature the way its working at the moment i wouldnt recommend it as a selling point for the PS3 untill they get it working a tad bit better.

Its fun to toy with, i hope i can get my DivX movies running perfectly, so i can use it as a mediacenter.

so they only had to use 256mb of GDDR3 for RSX, and could use less expensive XDR for Cell.

No, it' s the opposite. XDR is more expensive than GDDR3, but it' s used with CELL because CELL needs the extra speed. Originally the PS3 was designed to have all XDR memory (probably one pool) but Sony decided that XDR was too expensive and moved to half XDR and half GDDR3.

CELL is just dumb for a console. But like the BD Sony wanted to use the PS3 to cost reduce CELL so the chip can enter other markets. Everyone paid the price for Sony' s selfishness.