Slim PS3 = No More Otheros

J.F. · Post by **J.F.** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 1:44 pm

I had a thought on a legitimate reason Sony would have for pulling OTHEROS from the Slim: they cut the size of the flash rom again. The original PS3 had 256 MB of flash in it. Current PS3's have only 128 MB of flash. Maybe they cut the new Slims to 64 MB of flash. Remember that the OTHEROS loader is written into flash. So now there's no room, and they haven't had the chance to make a (safe) method of loading it from the harddrive. Just a thought.

lotharx · Post by **lotharx** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 1:55 pm

cheriff wrote:
Steril707 wrote:Off course the obvious route would be buying a non-slim PS3 then, but the question is, would a firmware update to that older machine kill off OtherOS functionality...
Just my thoughts, but I doubt it.

Although new models no longer do SACD or play ps2 games, but successive firmware updates have not actively removed it from older ones which originally could.

So either FW updates already are released/downloaded on a per-model image, or there's just "TheOne" which detects some machine ID and enables/disables features based on that. Of course no telling if psThree will follow the same plan.

edit: typos

It's just the one. all the PS3UPDAT.PUP tests had the same SHA1 results. It'd be too sloppy to do seperate updaters.

in 2.80 the structure is like this for example:

Code: Select all

SDK_Version.bin&#40;just contains FW update version&#41;
dots.txt&#40;XML file with license agreements in different languages&#41;
updater.self&#40;dummy binary containing 0000&#41;
vsh.tar&#40;key protected archive&#41;
File_5.tar&#40;packer modified archive&#41;
File_6.tar&#40;key protected archive&#41;
File_7.tar&#40;lots of PKG files and some packer modified archives&#41;
PUPHeader.bin&#40;internal extractor it seems for key files&#41;

They've been like that since the beginning some 1.x ones missing files, but it seems they use dynamic flashing. No PKI scheme is used for security, the unpacker is a isolated out of bounds process and there is more than one key used on the PS3. This is a good design.

Post by **Oobles** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 2:46 pm

Just to chime in with my 2c. This is really a disapointing decision from Sony and will encourage hacking that leads to piracy. It also removes an important development environment that allows new developers to learn how to write software for the Cell architecture. This leads to a larger pool or resources available to build software for the system.

If anyone would like to write up a more thorough response that I can post on the main page.. please post it here. I'd write something, however, I don't have time at the moment.

Regards,
David. aka Oobles.

ouasse · Post by **ouasse** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 4:26 pm

David,

I included your arguments in my blog article. Please feel free to use it as a starting point or not.

Maybe some arguments are missing, but for me the most important is there: This was an arbitrary decision, it is felt like a betrayal, and it will encourage hacking.

rapso · Post by **rapso** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 5:25 pm

J.F. wrote:I had a thought on a legitimate reason Sony would have for pulling OTHEROS from the Slim: they cut the size of the flash rom again. The original PS3 had 256 MB of flash in it. Current PS3's have only 128 MB of flash. Maybe they cut the new Slims to 64 MB of flash. Remember that the OTHEROS loader is written into flash. So now there's no room, and they haven't had the chance to make a (safe) method of loading it from the harddrive. Just a thought.

you know, if sony would know anything about business, they would make some boot-loader app that you can download for 100$ from psn (just like you have to pay for MS' xna dev) and allow ppl to start that bootloader just like they do with any other download.
They could easily keep all other restrictions (like no rsx access).

But what would you expect from a company that sells an aged, cutdown handheld for a saturated market with barely any wanted games for the price that you could get an iphone and x360 together.

The sad think is, all those marketing and business fail from the top guys does not make them disappear, cause they 'rule' the company, they rather fire some thousand john doe and keep going that retarded way. I really wonder how they can have the attitute to keep going with failures. I feel so sorry for those hard working sony employees that really try to do best, while those top guys fuck it up in every single announcement.

lotharx · Post by **lotharx** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 7:12 pm

All the mags, yuppies, and marketing pukes are already getting them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrOS_0Ul ... re=related

I'll still get one probably later on. Depending on how things go.

head crab fiasco...and the great chipmunk fires of 1981

EDIT: HDD extraction at the end http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn_V6UQsdoQ

Under some logic it makes it cheaper to not boot Linux but still have the same hardware, any theory how that is feasible? I'm at a lost..

rapso · Post by **rapso** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 11:56 pm

lotharx wrote: Under some logic it makes it cheaper to not boot Linux but still have the same hardware, any theory how that is feasible? I'm at a lost..

on the last site i wrote my guess, that they still might make some loss with every ps3 and they want to earn money by selling games.
Or the other way around, every box that just runs linux is a loss (like those 200, or was it 300?, PS3s that were cracing some encryption), so they will sell just boxes that need additional games to be any usefull.

just a guess.
and I also guess it's stupid. cause barely anyone will buy a ps3 to just run linux, if u have the opportunity to play a game on it, why would u buy any other system and game? (beside maybe some price differences).
and as I said, it would be smart to just sell the bootloader on psn, that would make every single ps3 a win if it runs linux....

but you know, marketing is driving the sale's decisions, not the ppl that know the user or are the user.

androvsky · Post by **androvsky** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 1:25 am

rapso wrote:
lotharx wrote: Under some logic it makes it cheaper to not boot Linux but still have the same hardware, any theory how that is feasible? I'm at a lost..
on the last site i wrote my guess, that they still might make some loss with every ps3 and they want to earn money by selling games.
Or the other way around, every box that just runs linux is a loss (like those 200, or was it 300?, PS3s that were cracing some encryption), so they will sell just boxes that need additional games to be any usefull.

just a guess.
and I also guess it's stupid. cause barely anyone will buy a ps3 to just run linux, if u have the opportunity to play a game on it, why would u buy any other system and game? (beside maybe some price differences).
and as I said, it would be smart to just sell the bootloader on psn, that would make every single ps3 a win if it runs linux....

but you know, marketing is driving the sale's decisions, not the ppl that know the user or are the user.

From what I understand, the slim is either breaking even or very close to it in the U.S., and probably making a bit of profit in other territories thanks to currency conversion. I suspect the real reason is Kutaragi is no longer at Sony, so the other executives get to mold the PS3 more in their vision, and they probably never really understood why the Playstation family needed Linux. Indeed, Kutaragi is the one that insisted on the Spiderman font for the PS3, and that's also going away with the slim, and possibly even upcoming game packaging will be switching to the new font.

The decision to remove linux could very well be a minor attempt at tweaking Kutaragi for all I know. No offense, but I think comments at the PS Blogs are a lot more likely to get noticed by Sony than complaints posted here or personal blogs.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/
http://blog.eu.playstation.com/

J.F. · Post by **J.F.** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 1:40 am

rapso wrote:you know, if sony would know anything about business, they would make some boot-loader app that you can download for 100$ from psn (just like you have to pay for MS' xna dev) and allow ppl to start that bootloader just like they do with any other download.
They could easily keep all other restrictions (like no rsx access).

Yeah, that was my thought as well - make the OTHEROS launcher an app. Even the way it is now is a pain - you have to go into the System Settings and change the default loader. Rather bad design... unless you were trying to discourage people from doing so.

But what would you expect from a company that sells an aged, cutdown handheld for a saturated market with barely any wanted games for the price that you could get an iphone and x360 together.

Now that's just a weeeeeee bit of an exaggeration. You might find the base XBox 360 for CLOSE to the price of a PSP, but the iPhone is going to run 100% more or higher. It's even more expensive when USED than a new PSP. :D

The sad think is, all those marketing and business fail from the top guys does not make them disappear, cause they 'rule' the company, they rather fire some thousand john doe and keep going that retarded way. I really wonder how they can have the attitute to keep going with failures. I feel so sorry for those hard working sony employees that really try to do best, while those top guys fuck it up in every single announcement.

Unfortunately, most companies are run that way these days. It's a couple generations worth of business schools that taught that the short term bottom line profit is the ONLY measure of a company.

speedxl · Post by **speedxl** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 3:25 am

there´s some sort of extraoficial explanation at ps2 linux forums.

I guess that with enough pressure we may see it implemented in the future..

http://playstation2-linux.com/forum/mes ... g_id=51037

BY: sarahe
DATE: 2009-Aug-21 22:23
SUBJECT: RE: Why no Linux in PS3 Slim?
Hi aragon,

I'm sorry that you are frustrated by the lack of comment specifically regarding the withdrawal of support for OtherOS on the new PS3 slim.

The reasons are simple: The PS3 Slim is a major cost reduction involving many changes to hardware components in the PS3 design. In order to offer the OtherOS install, SCE would need to continue to maintain the OtherOS hypervisor drivers for any significant hardware changes - this costs SCE. One of our key objectives with the new model is to pass on cost savings to the consumer with a lower retail price. Unfortunately in this case the cost of OtherOS install did not fit with the wider objective to offer a lower cost PS3.

We'll see if we can get the offical OtherOS page updated with something to this effect so that an official explanation is provided. Thank you for your comments.

Sarah.

ldesnogu · Post by **ldesnogu** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 4:10 am

If that's a software cost issue only, then the Other Boot support will be removed from all of the upcoming firmwares, no matter whether you install it on a Slim PS3 or not.

Post by **jbit** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 4:22 am

ldesnogu wrote:If that's a software cost issue only, then the Other Boot support will be removed from all of the upcoming firmwares, no matter whether you install it on a Slim PS3 or not.

What the hell, that's not what the post said at all... From what sarah said, there is new (revised) hardware in the slim, writing new paravirtualized drivers for this hardware and putting them through testing and security evaluation is a significant cost. They already have the drivers for the "old" hardware so I very much doubt they will remove it (and there has been _NO_ indication that they will)

ldesnogu · Post by **ldesnogu** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 4:30 am

So they don't want to pay to implement virtualization of new components, and they would keep support for all of old hardware in upcoming releases? In all companies I have worked for, no matter their sizes, that wouldn't be called cost effective.

And you know, we'd better be sure than being sorry when it's too late after upgrading ;)

PS - To make it clearer: drivers for any harware even if not developed anymore will cost you, since you have to validate them for each release, especially if you change your kernel.

Post by **jbit** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 4:46 am

Indeed, but Sony also currently maintain the PS2 emulation drivers and software for the backwards compatible PS3s and the SACD driver for the older PS3s, so clearly they have procedures for supporting "old" features.

ldesnogu · Post by **ldesnogu** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 4:54 am

That's a very good point. So let's hope they will keep it as is for us early adopters :)

ouasse · Post by **ouasse** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 2:00 pm

androvsky wrote:No offense, but I think comments at the PS Blogs are a lot more likely to get noticed by Sony than complaints posted here or personal blogs.

Well, both is even much better (my post is #666 on the US blog, sooo evil)

lotharx · Post by **lotharx** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 5:40 pm

ouasse wrote:
androvsky wrote:No offense, but I think comments at the PS Blogs are a lot more likely to get noticed by Sony than complaints posted here or personal blogs.
Well, both is even much better (my post is #666 on the US blog, sooo evil)

I would suggest going to 4chan /b/ and getting a flash mob to comment on them but knowing 4chan it would be mostly links to kiddy porn and pirated eminem tracks in the comments..

I don't think comments are going to be influential, the units are already manufactured and in shipping stages with the changes. The official cause for no optional boot loader is price of driver maintaining which sounds kind of weak. Then again devs and people without other computers are the only ones who seemed to use the environment.

mc · Post by mc » Sat Aug 22, 2009 12:54 am

ldesnogu wrote:PS - To make it clearer: drivers for any harware even if not developed anymore will cost you, since you have to validate them for each release, especially if you change your kernel.

In this case, the fact that the OtherOS environment is something the machine boots straight into (directed by an indiciator bit in the flash) rather than something that runs under GameOS means that they can actually keep the code base for this subsystem identical, removing the need for a revalidation. So given the following system breakdown (which I think is more or less correct):

Code: Select all

1st stage bootloader  ---- GameOS kernel --- GameOS modules and apps
                     \
                       \
                   OtherOS paravirtualization
                             \
                               \
                         OtherOS kernel  &#40;e.g. Linux&#41; ---  OtherOS apps

you don't need to revalidate the OtherOS stuff as long as you just change the GameOS stuff.

ldesnogu · Post by **ldesnogu** » Sat Aug 22, 2009 1:03 am

Are you sure this is how it works? (This is a naive question, don't look for any hidden thing.)

And if it's indeed the way it works, do we know whether the 1st stage bootloader code can be changed by a firmware? If so, then validation of the OtherOS part would be needed anyway, though it'd probably be rather minimal.

Oh well as I said, let's wait for the new FW to come out and see what happens. All I know is that I won't upgrade until I see confirmations OtherOS still works :)

lotharx · Post by **lotharx** » Sat Aug 22, 2009 2:13 am

I actually seriously doubt firmware can change the 1st stage loader. If you research the obscured PCB traces on any revision you'll find the CBE is the first initialized chip in the entire system meaning it contains the 1st stage loader. There is no way to tell whether the 7th SPE has it hard flashed in it's local store, or if it's in some non-volatile in the PPE. We do know there are 7/8 active cores(even verified from thermal imaging,) an EIB, a MMU, and PPE, but the hardware logic is too complex to map past that and the PS3 has an out of bounds process model on top of legacy PPC LPAR and signing.

All the Linux kernel relieved where data structures and calls that Sony let us see that where in the otherOS driver; Every OS post CP/M-DOS variants-and Linux 0.x uses identical abstraction both with kernel code and system subsets. They gave us all the XDR and DDR2 and simply filtered the MMU for the HV calls. Only thing the PS3 native system uses when in otheros mode is a single SPE with a local store and RAM. There is no way to access any native resource because an SPE internally controls it's own address space and DMA and this is implemented in hardware design.

They can make a signature checking 1st stage loader and do any code modification they care to without changing it simply by using layered encryption with the key file packed and the outer layer using a secondary(non-root/common) key in said loader. This can even be sloppy as the first data onlycomes in over the bus. Size differentials are solved with the same system. I'm not even a physicist and I can at least conjure up something relatively secure.

ps2devman · Post by **ps2devman** » Sat Aug 22, 2009 2:15 am

http://kotaku.com/5340337/sony-explain- ... patibility

It may be a global decision.
This article says they won't support PS2 software emulation either on PS3 Slim.

Also, if enough cry loud, over time, if Sony gather money, they may feel inclined to spend money to support all these no-revenue stuff (PS2 emu, Other OS, etc...). (I don't believe it, of course)

Maybe they raced to produce PS3 Slim and didn't want anything not revenue raising oriented to delay things.

androvsky · Post by **androvsky** » Sat Aug 22, 2009 3:40 am

lotharx wrote:
ouasse wrote:
androvsky wrote:No offense, but I think comments at the PS Blogs are a lot more likely to get noticed by Sony than complaints posted here or personal blogs.
Well, both is even much better (my post is #666 on the US blog, sooo evil)
I would suggest going to 4chan /b/ and getting a flash mob to comment on them but knowing 4chan it would be mostly links to kiddy porn and pirated eminem tracks in the comments..

I don't think comments are going to be influential, the units are already manufactured and in shipping stages with the changes. The official cause for no optional boot loader is price of driver maintaining which sounds kind of weak. Then again devs and people without other computers are the only ones who seemed to use the environment.

Ugh, the last thing I'd want to do is get /b/ involved. I think Sony can be persuaded if they find out people are actually using the feature; if you looked at the various PS3 linux message boards and mailing lists for the last six months, would you think more than a couple dozen people were using linux on the PS3?

jimparis · Post by **jimparis** » Sat Aug 22, 2009 4:36 am

On the cbe-oss-dev mailing list, Geoff from Sony says:

The feature of "Install Other OS" was removed from the new
"Slim" PS3 model to focus on delivering games and other
entertainment content.

Please be assured that SCE is committed to continue
the support for previously sold models that have the
"Install Other OS" feature and that this feature will
not be disabled in future firmware releases.

-Geoff

See how easy that was compared to all the idle speculation? :)

lotharx · Post by **lotharx** » Sat Aug 22, 2009 5:41 am

jimparis wrote:On the cbe-oss-dev mailing list, Geoff from Sony says:
The feature of "Install Other OS" was removed from the new
"Slim" PS3 model to focus on delivering games and other
entertainment content.

Please be assured that SCE is committed to continue
the support for previously sold models that have the
"Install Other OS" feature and that this feature will
not be disabled in future firmware releases.

-Geoff
See how easy that was compared to all the idle speculation? :)

Yeah with the latter statement I'm pretty sure that means for legacy systems in future updates.

Also all these ps3 hack sites rumor mill too much. There is a rumor going around about a mod chip that blogs are cycling and the guy who is behind it has already been figured out, the actual rumor itself even looks fake but still got mass publishing. I'm sure it's cranking up ad revenue.

Post by **jbit** » Sat Aug 22, 2009 6:00 am

lotharx wrote:Also all these ps3 hack sites rumor mill too much. There is a rumor going around about a mod chip that blogs are cycling and the guy who is behind it has already been figured out, the actual rumor itself even looks fake but still got mass publishing. I'm sure it's cranking up ad revenue.

Luckily ps2dev.org isn't funded by advertising, so we don't need rumors and speculation here :P

rapso · Post by **rapso** » Sat Aug 22, 2009 6:50 am

mc wrote:
Code: Select all
1st stage bootloader  --- virtualization --- GameOS kernel --- GameOS modules and apps
                                 \
                                  \
                                    OtherOS kernel  &#40;e.g. Linux&#41; ---  OtherOS apps
you don't need to revalidate the OtherOS stuff as long as you just change the GameOS stuff.

I think, for copy protection it's rather like this, always having some security layer.
GameOS is probably something *nix alike, so it's BS to say they would need to rewrite drivers, low level stuff is anyway in the virtualization layer, exchanging the OS layer isn't of any big deal imo, as the driver layer is probably hidden, for security reasons.

Sony did all the security stuff quite well with no flaw so far, I doubt they'd make a GameOS straight on the metal, I'd rather think that a lot of the GameOS stuff runs in the same security level as the games do, for faster access (like alloc, flip or pad state reading, which is of course a wrapper to the virtualization layer).

just my 2 cent

lotharx · Post by **lotharx** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 12:21 am

From what I've seen gameos is loaded from the 1st stage boot loader in the CBE from the SLC NAND doing my before mentioned signing method thus not needing loader change, and simply uses a LPAR and a SPE.

All that being said though I think it's a weak excuse. The code that allows those calls is most likely reusable and a significantly small fraction of development costs.

SIDE NOTE: You can do nice boot kits using the Sony HV technique.

rapso · Post by **rapso** » Mon Aug 24, 2009 5:49 pm

Has anyone extracted some signature check key yet, used to check game elfs?

lotharx · Post by **lotharx** » Mon Aug 24, 2009 8:43 pm

rapso wrote:Has anyone extracted some signature check key yet, used to check game elfs?

I think they frown upon most reversing talk here. The unencrypted ELF files that I've seen didn't do any check though, they merely handled meta data. Some of the .SELF files have code in them too, but the data sections are encrypted, and there is no inline code that removes it inline like you'd see with a PE protector. The stack section is just more useless code with non-vital functions; which is why Sony probably left them unencrypted.

I wont say anything else. I just wrote a python script I made to dump ELF binary structures. I have one for PE too although it's useless in most cases.

This will probably be my last post here for a long time. discuss

Post by **ooPo** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 11:09 pm

I think they frown upon most reversing talk here.

Actually, this is untrue. The intent behind the reversing is important to consider.
If you're not actively working on a method to pirate games you're pretty much free to talk about whatever you want.