As the internet browser on the PS3 is pissing me off due to lots of major short falls. (No copy / Paste, Small text entry windows, lack of ability to delete lines quickly, lack of ability to read PDFs, crap fonts that make your HD TV look blurry, Enter being intrepreted as a submit if pressed for a too short a period of time and many others....) and as my laptop is in repair and I won't see it for a month... I was thinking of installing Linux on the computer so I can use PDFs, Openoffice, better browsing and hopefully watch videos. Editing Quark Xpress files and Filemaker files would be a challenge though... So has anyone done so? How easy is it to do for someone who can solve MS-DOS and Windows problems but would have trouble understanding a C langauge? Do I need to reformat the internal HDD, if so is it easy enough to copy data (including Users) back? How do I run "linux" programs? Can I run it off an external USB HDD or CF HDD? Is there any distributions that can be recommended that look Windows like?
I've installed terrasofts YellowDog with no problems on my PS3. It's really easy to installed - You'll need to format your HDD on your PS3 and re-partition (Using the tool in the System Menu). You'll need a USB keyboard and Mouse to go through the GUI install. I haven't tried running of an external HDD but I don't think it'll work - I image both O/S must be on the first HDD in the ARK Path. Everything like openoffice, pdf viewing software, firefox and thunderbird are pre-installed so you'll just need to figure out how to install additional apps (That's the only bit i'm having issues with right now - finding the correct version of the file for the version of Linux i'm using). I would recommend it.
The first thing I did with my PS3 -- even before trying any games -- was to install PSUbuntu on it. It's a very simple and painless process; although there were a few minor problems to do with resolution during the install process (but not too annoying, since you can work around them). I mainly use it to play videos and music (mounted from my file server via NFS), which works okay. The videos come out a little pixelated/compressed when compared to my desktop machines (also running Ubuntu) - but I think that's down to the PPC codecs it uses (not 100% sure of that, though). I have used it as a normal computer, too; I installed things like GAIM, Opera, X-Chat, Evolution -- everything I use on my desktops -- and it seemed fine. Due to the lack of memory (256 MiB isn't really much), running GNOME slows it down a little. Light-weight desktop environments and/or window managers (Fluxbox is what I use - on the PS3 and desktops) make it run at a decent speed, though. Having said that, they're not as "friendly" as GNOME and KDE. If you have no idea what I mean, stick with the defaults and see how it feels. I'd suggest PSUbuntu (<-- click), since Ubuntu is the most user-friendly Linux distro I've come across. Running applications is easy; you select them from the "Applications" menu (think "Start" menu). With PSUbuntu, you rarely need to mess around with the command line stuff. The only reason I've needed to do that is because I'm prefer typing to using a mouse. Once you realise how a few things work, it shouldn't present a problem to a Windows user. If you get stuck, you can always check out the wealth of information on the interwebs. Not that I'm saying Yellow Dog isn't any good; I've never used it. It could be as good, for all I know.
My file-server is also running Ubuntu - but Fiesty, not Gutsy like my PS3. I did a "server" install, so it didn't install the X server or any GUI stuff. As for supporting TCP/IP: My PS3 is on-line, so I'm guessing so. Or did you mean something else?
I'm not sure what protocol Linux/Unix uses i.e. apple use AppleTalk and Novel uses IPX/SPX etc.. So does Unix use TCP/IP out the box? I'm no unix expert as you can tell - I support microsoft stuff for a living. I've yet to map/mount any of my shares on my PS3 and really wondered whether I could do it out the box or not,
Yeah, TCP/IP stuff Just Works™ straight out the box - it has done for years. I think you can mount NFS stuff (on Ubuntu) without having to install anything else - although running an NFS server/daemon will require you to apt-get install a single user-space NFS kernel module. But that's just one command... You should be able to mount Windows drives (assuming they're shared) on the PS3 (or any Linux distro, for that matter) with "Samba", which I'm assuming comes pre-installed (although I don't use it, so can't say for sure). If not, it's easy to install and set-up.
