Teaching a new dog old tricks

Linux distributor Terra Soft has announced that its Yellow Dog Linux 5.0 (YDL) product will run on the Playstation 3. Derived from Fedora Core 5, YDL is a complete Linux distribution optimized for the PPC architecture. The upcoming YDL 5.0 release will feature "a simple installer [that] enables absolutely anyone to install without instruction" and the Enlightenment e17 desktop environment "in order to provide an unprecedented level of function and interface aesthetic." YDL 5.0 for the PS3 is scheduled for release next month, and a version for Apple's old PowerPC hardware will be released later this year.

This past May, we reported on comments made at E3 by Sony manager Izumi Kawanishi, who revealed that a Linux distribution and various developer tools would probably be available for the PS3. Terra Soft's YDL 5.0 distribution, which will ship with GCC 4 and the Cell SDK in addition to a broad assortment of common open source desktop applications, could potentially facilitate the emergence of a homebrew PS3 development community and bring a lot of extra value to Sony's next-gen console. That said, there is plenty of room for skepticism given the limitations of the old PS2 Linux environment, the high cost of the PS3 itself, the depressingly limited availability of the Playstation 3 at launch, and the experimental nature of e17.

An intrepid entrepreneur and one of the earliest pioneers of Linux on the PowerPC platform, Terra Soft CEO Kai Staats possesses a unique perspective on the relationship between people and technology, which undoubtedly inspires his company's creative and unconventional approach to Linux. We discussed YDL 5.0 with Staats, who answered our questions and provided some insightful commentary about e17 and the potential of the PS3 as a multimedia platform.

In light of the PS3's poor reception from the press and the gaming community, one immediately wonders why Terra Soft would work with Sony rather than Microsoft or Nintendo. Staats says that the PS3 "looks and feels like a real computer," and explains that "it is important to understand that the Xbox and Nintendo are not designed to be personal computers, the PS3 is."

What about the XBox 360? Staats "contacted the Microsoft 'Linux Lab' a few months ago, just to see what they might say," and received no response.

In the past, the open source software community has reverse-engineered proprietary gaming platforms with varying degrees of success in order to facilitate homebrew development. One wonders how YDL 5.0 compares to the various unauthorized Linux console platform ports that have emerged over the years. Unlike homebrew Linux solutions, Staats points out that "YDL 5.0 for the PS3 is not a hack," and argues that it is "the most complete, thoroughly tested, professional Linux distribution for the Power architecture."

Staats feels that Terra Soft's relationship with Sony has facilitated development of a well-integrated product: "Our work with Sony has granted us a unique opportunity to have in our possession beta PlayStation units (the same that the game developers have used) in order to work closely with the system to ensure a high quality end-user experience, from bootloader to halt, from installation to playing CDs and configuring the desktop."

Will the high price of the PS3 deter interested users? It certainly deters me. Staats believes that the PS3 will provide a do-all set-top box, and he shared his own plans to incorporate one into his personal home theater: "I cannot emphasize enough that the PS3 is designed for Linux and [is] far more than a game box," he said. "Personally, I plan to remove my home DVD and CD decks and use instead a PS3 attached with my home theater for DVD, CD, MP3, and home computerattached to a 5:1 14 speaker system with HD LCD. Elegant, simple, and powerful."

The capacity of the PS3's powerful hardware to serve as a fully-functional Linux PC is a point that Staats also emphasizes when responding to critics that point out the limitations of Linux on the PS2.

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