Sony Adds PS3 Support to Linux Kernel

mu22le writes "A few Sony patches to the Linux kernel have just been merged in the mainline tree, to be included in the 2.6.20 release. The patches add 'core platform support for the PS3 game console and other devices using the PS3 hypervisor.'" From the Linux Devices article: "Linux gained generic support for the Cell processor, on which the PS3 is based, with the 2.6.13 release in June of 2005. The new Sony-contributed patches to the 2.6.20 kernel appear to add machine-specific support for technology such as the PS3's memory architecture, DMA (direct memory access) model, and SMP (symmetric multiprocessing) model. A Yellow Dog Linux (YDL) distribution has been available for the PS3 since October, thanks to a development deal between Sony and YDL publisher TerraSoft. However, YDL so far has not been bundled with early PS3 shipments, despite earlier indications from Sony Entertainment's CEO, Ken Kuturagi."

Rootkit

[nogginthenog]

Does it include the 'CD copy protection' loadable module?

Re:What is the point

[Enoxice]

Are you imploring us to imagine a Beowulf cluster of PS3s? Intriguing...

We are winning.

[gunny01]

Put that up your pipe and smoke it NetBSD! You don't support Cell! So much for 'Of Course it Supports NetBSD!'

Re:What is the point

[AuMatar]

You do. I'm not wasteful like that. USB is a high overhead protocol thats wasteful of CPU time for something as straightforward as a mouse or keyboard. Why spend 4 times the time you have to in a USB interrupt instead of a quick PS/2 one? On top of that, it causes 2 single points of failure (USB circuit shorts? Now everything is broken, its a shared bus. With PS/2, only your printer breaks)- the hardware and the drivers. I prefer having my mouse and keyboard use an easier to code, unchanging, decade old interface so that if something goes wrong with USB my computer is usable.

Re:What is the point

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a life.

hopefully

[minus_273]

hopefully the code will be audited to make sure there arent any backdoors, trojans or DRM schemes snuck into the kernel