February 2007 Archives

This is the first post I write on my PS3 and I'm running Firefox on Xubuntu. This is the third distribution I try and if anything doesn't go wrong soon, I think I'll stick with this, as this is by far the best yet. I followed this guide and picked Xubuntu desktop as the PS3 doesn't have much RAM available. This snapshot of available memory was taken with a terminal, gftp, firefox and the gimp running. It's responsive and fast as long as memory is available, but unfortunately most applications use a lot of memory these days.

After playing with my fedora install for one night I was about to throw my PS3 out the window. But luckily I consulted my friend Christian with this problem and he suggested the poor PS3 was just out of RAM and told me to install a desktop that isn't so demanding on memory. So I followed his advice and spent the night installing xfce. I'm glad I followed his advice. This desktop makes the PS3 justice now everything starts instantly. So what did I do? First I followed the guide to install Fedora 6, but I stopped after a few steps:

• Install Fedora Core 6 minimum install
• install dhclient
• run dhclient
• install openssh-server (so nice)
• set video mode (with my LG 42PC1RR ps3videomode -v 3 is fine)

Then I went straight to installing xfce. It took me a while to figure out I had to do this --enablerepo=extras in order for fedora to find xfdesktop package in its extras repository. After finding that out I added it to all my yum commands just in case. I'm not 100% certain I installed all these in the exact same order as listed below, but this order should be better than mine anyway. Just let me know if you have to do something not listed here.

yum --enablerepo=extras install xorg-x11
yum --enablerepo=extras install xterm
yum --enablerepo=extras install xorg-x11-twm
yum --enablerepo=extras install xorg-x11-75dpi-fonts
yum --enablerepo=extras install xorg-x11-100dpi-fonts
yum --enablerepo=extras install xorg-x11-truetype-fonts
yum --enablerepo=extras install bitstream-vera-fonts
yum --enablerepo=extras install xfwm4
yum --enablerepo=extras install xfce4-panel
yum --enablerepo=extras install xfdesktop
yum --enablerepo=extras install xfce-utils
yum --enablerepo=extras install xfwm4-themes
yum --enablerepo=extras install xfce4-session
yum --enablerepo=extras install openssh-clients
yum --enablerepo=extras install dbus-x11
yum --enablerepo=extras install orage

Now I'm ready to install some nice toys to play with. Stay tuned.

After ditching YDL 5.0 I decided to try my favourite distribution, Fedora. I'd seen a lot of instructions for installing Fedora 5, but I'd rather have Fedora 6, and I finally found a guide for that too. This was a very nice method of installing, I felt I had control over the entire process, and being able to do most of the install process from a cygwin command window made the install a breeze as I could just copy paste all the long series of commands.

I had an old USB keyboard and mouse laying around from the PS2 linux kit. Since I needed exactly this when running linux on PS3 I thought it must be a perfect fit, both Sony and PlayStation logotypes on them and all. Don't make the same mistake! This keyboard and mouse is clearly incompatible with the PS3. I have no idea what would be the problem, I mean it's USB right? But I had all sorts of weird problems with the keyboard in particular. I often had to pull it out and plug it back in for it to come back to work. There are much better alternatives, use them!

It might not be possible to play HD-DVD and Blu-Ray on the same hardware for some time but it will be possible to store them nicely together as they only have cosmetic differences.

When I unpacked my new PlayStation 3 I got a bit worried after skimming through the user guide. In the section about video resolutions I found the rather confusing paragraph in the tips section below. With a new high-definition plasma only supporting 720p and 1080i this was no funny read. I had already ordered a bluray movie when I saw this, and bluray playback was one of the reasons I wanted a ps3 at this time. However, the movie arrived on friday and it worked perfectly. The image quality is AWESOME even though my TV set doesn't support full HD at 1080p. This movie is one of those that doesn't have region protection so I had no problem playing it even though I have a US PS3. With bluray it is up to the publisher to decide if the want to region code the movie or not, so look out for region coded movies if your buying from amazon or whatnot.

On friday night I made my first attempt at installing linux on my new PS3. I followed the easy YDL instructions and had no problems at all with the actual install. But I couldn't get internet working. I could get a valid IP from my router, but DNS didn't work. First I thought my router (di-624) had a problem with IPV6 as I found a few links pointing in that direction. But that wasn't the problem. It turned out I had what I thought was a switch in my network that was actually a router (di-604) too. This bastard had the same IP as my real router (192.168.0.1) so they were colliding. Found out that router was also completely broken in the process. However, my first impressions of YDL 5.0 wasn't very good. It was very easy, but apparently they have some private rpm repository for paying customers, and they use enlightment as window manager that I don't like. So for the next time I'm going for a Fedora Core 6 install. Stay tuned.

Got this innocent looking package today, but it's not really that innocent after all. It's painfully heavy and it contains something really hot and desireable! Not very next-gen to not include an HDMI cable, not even a component cable is included. The box has all it's fancy features listed with logos on the back. Look! It even has Java, that's something to call my friend Christian about. The post office thinks it's weight is 9 kg, and while carrying it, I did too, but the box suggests otherwise. Carefully fitted under my high definition telly. Doesn't look that bad after all. Stay tuned...

I finally found some time to build my self an Arcade Controller for the 360. Found a nice guide with google, but I decided to use an old X-Arcade solo that I had laying around. I choose that in favor of a dreamcast arcade controller I had because this one has more opportunities if I decide I want to change the joystick to one with an easy 4/8-way switch. I'm very pleased with the result. The only problem I experienced during the conversion was that I first tried to solder the 360 wires while keeping the old wires used for the PC functionality in order to be able to still use it for PC, PS2 or anything else that X-gaming has a converter for, but that didn't work since the 360 wants separate GND for each button. When I ripped out the old wires everything just started working.