New 399€ hardware open question

dom · Post by **dom** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 7:24 am

Hi all,

this is a question about the new ps3 coming wednesday 10/10.
I'm planning to buy this one and to install linux on it.

I've waited for some months now, so I can wait until someone
kindly answers this few points :
- is linux installing just fine on it ?
- is the rsx running the same specs/speed ?
- is the cell running the same specs/speed ?

I guess the answers should be yes/same/same, but from my experience, things aren't always going as they should :-)

I was also wondering if someone is running fine the ps3 with a yuv cable on
a IIyama vision master pro410 at max resolution ?

Other informations about the new hardware are welcome.

dom · Post by **dom** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 10:09 am

The connector on my monitor are labelled :
(V) (H/HV) (B) (Gsync) (R)

I investigated a little and found this from terra soft:

Component video
This is the third best connection. It is connected by a cable from the PS3 AV Multi-Out port to your TV or monitor's component ports (red, green, and blue plugs for video; white and red plugs for stereo audio). PlayStation 2 AV Multi-Out cables will also work. This connection will again allow the modes your monitor supports, except for 5:1080p, 10:1080p, 11:WXGA, 12:SXGA, and 13:WUXGA. Common video modes seen here at Terra Soft Solutions are 1:480i, 2:480p, 3:720p and 4:1080i. Note that this defaults to a YPbPr analogue signal with sync on green (or maybe sync on luma), but can be switched to RGB. Component cables can be purchased from the The Store.

Am I right to think that my monitor (1600x1200 capable) will work with the ps3 ?

ralferoo · Post by **ralferoo** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 10:01 pm

dom wrote:The connector on my monitor are labelled :
(V) (H/HV) (B) (Gsync) (R)

So, it has 5 seperate BNC connectors? That bodes well for sync-on-green, as most VGA only monitors need combined a H/V sync.

I don't believe it's possible to configure the PS3 to support your monitor under the GameOS. The RGB/YUV option is there to support SCART connectors. There's no way of selecting RGB at HD resolutions, or at least there wasn't last time I looked (firmware 1.6).

However, it may well work under Linux; TerraSoft's post that you quote seems to indicate that. However, I'm not sure if the VGA resolutions are available unless you use HDMI. It's possible they are not (I can't find my component leads to check).

You might well find that your best bet might still be to buy a component -> VGA standards convertor that works at HD resolutions. They are generally pretty pricey. Or just use a TV with the PS3 - certainly the path of least resistance.

What are your reasons for buying a PS3? If it's for games, give up on the monitor idea now! If it's for cell development & experimentation, then it doesn't really matter what display you hook up to it as development is easiest using another PC and ssh'ing in. If it's to use as a media centre, then you probably want to ask and see if anyone else has got it working with a monitor setup first.

One final thing. Older monitors (and ones with BNC connectors are usually older unless it's "pro" kit) tend not to like syncing down to SD broadcast resolutions. If this is the case, you'll almost certainly just want to use a TV with the PS3.

Regarding your other question about Linux running on the 40gb PS3, I haven't heard any news to the contrary. I was planning on buying one as a second PS3 this week (so I can start to add an internet option to my game), but given the price drops of the 60gb bundles, I can probably get a 60gb with extra controller and a random game for little more than a 40gb with extra controller. You might well find your local shops have similar deals.

Post by **jbit** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 12:15 am

GameOS can be configured to output 480p in RGB, which is basically 640x480 VGA with sync on green.... You can't go higher than 480p RGB in GameOS though

YellowFish · Post by **YellowFish** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 3:28 am

There is no 480p in RGB mode.
There is in Component (Y/Cb/Cr) mode and that does not carry R/G/B signals.
So "which is basically VGA with SoG" is incorrect.

Post by **jbit** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 6:50 am

I have a 480p in RGB option on my PS3 (Japanese first revision)
If you don't have it on yours, could you tell me your hardware region/version?
edit
How I get it: Settings>Display Settings>Video Output Settings>AV MULTI/SCART>RGB>(Confirm setting)>480p

I've even tried this with a PS2linux VGA cable and a Sync-on-Green monitor, worked great!

dom · Post by **dom** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 7:31 am

Thank you guys,

ralferoo wrote: What are your reasons for buying a PS3? If it's for games, give up on the monitor idea now! If it's for cell development & experimentation, then it doesn't really matter what display you hook up to it as development is easiest using another PC and ssh'ing in. If it's to use as a media centre, then you probably want to ask and see if anyone else has got it working with a monitor setup first.

All of them ;-) I just want to get something readable on a screen to install
linux. It's pretty annoying to read on an older SD TV. Even 480p will do it.
As for ssh, i want to try some graphic codes, export the display won't be a solution for me.

jbit wrote: I have a 480p in RGB option on my PS3 (Japanese first revision)
If you don't have it on yours, could you tell me your hardware region/version?
edit
How I get it: Settings>Display Settings>Video Output Settings>AV MULTI/SCART>RGB>(Confirm setting)>480p

I've even tried this with a PS2linux VGA cable and a Sync-on-Green monitor, worked great!

Thank you jbit, great news for me :-) Someone can confirm the option for
RGB/480p on the (pal,european) ps3 Older/Newer ?

ralferoo · Post by **ralferoo** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 5:13 pm

ralferoo wrote: What are your reasons for buying a PS3? If it's for games, give up on the monitor idea now! If it's for cell development & experimentation, then it doesn't really matter what display you hook up to it as development is easiest using another PC and ssh'ing in. If it's to use as a media centre, then you probably want to ask and see if anyone else has got it working with a monitor setup first.

dom wrote:All of them ;-) I just want to get something readable on a screen to install linux. It's pretty annoying to read on an older SD TV. Even 480p will do it.
As for ssh, i want to try some graphic codes, export the display won't be a solution for me.

Ah, you misunderstood what I meant. Using the PS3 console for development is very frustrating, particularly when you're trying to debug stuff that's rendering to the framebuffer! It's far easier IMHO to ssh into the PS3 from another machine, and develop from there. If you're using X, you can run your editor on the PS3 but appearing on your PC; that way you can see the graphical output of the PS3 on your TV and whatever debugging output on your PC.

As a side note, the text is just about readable on a TV, although it's not pleasant I agree. The graphical installer doesn't quite fit on the screen in the default mode (NTSC overscan-safe) so some options are tricky to select! I actually did a text-only install on my PS3 and then installed the X libraries manually solely so I could run gvim over X to appear on my PC. There's also a kernel option that lets you use a different mode - maybe it all fits on the screen if you specify PAL.

dom · Post by **dom** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 6:03 am

Hi all,

Finally I took a bundle starter pack.

I installed linux (YLD5) on my tv with text mode. As I haven't
got an AV component cable right now, i can't test the rgb output but
the support is present (parametre->parametre affichage->parametre de sortie video->AV MULTI/Péritel->RGB->576p or pal)

dom · Post by **dom** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 9:44 am

Hi all,

After trying YLD for some hours and seeing that it was only 32bit, i
decided to setup my fourth gentoo machine ;-)

I used this doc,doc2,
doc3 and doc4.

As I didn't re-fdisk after the YLD installation, I have a /dev/sda1 empty partition. I did not succeed in putting kernel there and boot from it. At the moment, I am booting on /dev/sda2 where my / is mounted. I did not understand well the kboot.conf stuff. May I put the compiled kernel stuff and boot kernel from /dev/sda1 with root from /dev/sda2 (as I do in grub) ?

For crosscompiling, I read this
doc,doc,doc and doc.

And I finally succeeded a crossdev for spu with :

Code: Select all

USE="-fortran -mudflap objc objc++ -objc-gc -gcj" CFLAGS=-O2 crossdev -s4 --b 2.18-r1 --k 2.6.22-r2 --g 4.3.0_alpha20071019 --l 1.15.0 --stage4 --ex-gcc --ex-gdb --ex-insight spu

Note that after some long hours, I finally set up a distcc on my other machine with the help of this post from gentoo forum.

Two notes:
As gdb archive was missing from redhat and co, I deleted it from toolchain overlay and took the one from portage.
As gcc-4.3.0_alpha20071012.ebuild did not compile, I copy it to gcc-4.3.0_alpha20071019.ebuild and ebuid digest it.

One more question for vnc (realvnc) user :
I'm using w9wm because it is really light. My problem is that I can't
get the ctrl-* shortcuts to work even with the F8 menu. Any solution for
that ?

ralferoo · Post by **ralferoo** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 5:18 pm

dom wrote:As I didn't re-fdisk after the YLD installation, I have a /dev/sda1 empty partition. I did not succeed in putting kernel there and boot from it. At the moment, I am booting on /dev/sda2 where my / is mounted. I did not understand well the kboot.conf stuff. May I put the compiled kernel stuff and boot kernel from /dev/sda1 with root from /dev/sda2 (as I do in grub) ?

You can pretty much put things where you like.

kboot looks at /proc/partitions to discover what partitions exist. It scans them all for etc/kboot.conf and treats that partition as the root for that etc/kboot.conf whilst honouring any mappings in etc/fstab.

So, if your kboot.conf or /boot files are on sda1 and everything else is on sda2, you probably want to them to sda2, as that means you're then free to wipe sda1 and re-use it for something else.

If you're doing development and have a large sda1 going spare, you probably want to use that as /home, for instance. Or keep it for later experimentation with different OS's.

My advice is always not to have one big partition, as that limits what you can do with things later on. On a PS3, I'd suggest 2x10Gb partition for "root" and "other", 1x20Gb partition for "home" and a 256Mb partition, maybe even 512Mb, for swap. Obviously, you might need to shrink the bigger ones a bit to fit, but that's the general idea.

Your /etc/kboot.conf can indicate to the kernel what device to use as the root device after it has been loading, but all the path to the kernel and initrd parameters are relative to the partition where /etc/kboot.conf is defined.

One final note - recent kernels (I think 2.6.22 onwards) refer to the hard disk partitions as /dev/ps3da1 etc rather than /dev/sda1. kboot internally uses an old kernel, so it will talk in terms of sda1, but the root= parameter in the kernel line is usually /dev/ps3da1 now as that is processed by the newly booted kernel.

dom · Post by **dom** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 11:28 pm

Thank you for the answer ralferoo,

My partitions are that way :

Code: Select all

/dev/sda1   *           1          13      104391   83  Linux
/dev/sda2              14        1318    10482412+  83  Linux
/dev/sda3            1319        1449     1052257+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4            1450        5729    34379100    5  Extended
/dev/sda5            1450        5729    34379068+  83  Linux

sda1 is about 100M for kernel stuff, and it is not mounted at boot time. sda2 is
my / partition and is about 10G. I set the swap to 1G and the rest for /home.

So from what you said, I put the kernel stuff in sda1 with a /etc/kboot.conf that looks like that :

Code: Select all

gentoo='sda1&#58;/boot/kernel initrd=sda1&#58;/boot/initrd root=/dev/ram0 real_root=/dev/sda2 init=/linuxrc video=ps3fb&#58;mode&#58;1 rhgb'

The ps3 is booting but the kboot prompt does not show up any thing. I get
a "don't understand action "leasefail"". When I type gentoo, I get a "/init: eval: 1: gentoo: not found" .

I finally succeed with this one :

Code: Select all

gentoo='sda1&#58;/boot/kernel root=/dev/sda2 real_root=/dev/ram0 sda1&#58;initrd=/boot/initrd init=/linuxrc video=ps3fb&#58;mode&#58;1 rhgb'

I'm currently trying to get a new kernel version :-)

dom · Post by **dom** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 8:50 pm

dom wrote:I'm currently trying to get a new kernel version :-)

I am finally running ps3 git 2.6.23 kernel. I put there the steps I have done based on a french tutorial for ubuntu.

This is just to have a remainder here the next time I change the kernel and to help people having trouble booting a new kernel.

Having a livecd ready to use is a really good idea :-)

Code: Select all

git clone git&#58;//git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/geoff/ps3-linux.git ps3-linux-git
ln -s ps3-linux-git linux
git clone git&#58;//www.jdl.com/software/dtc.git dtc
cd dtc/
make
cp dtc /usr/local/stow/dtc/bin/dtc 
cd ..
wget http&#58;//eve.l-nibelungia.de/config-2.6.23-rc7-ps3.patch
cd linux
bzcat /usr/src/UDF_2.50-linux-2.6.23-rc6.patch.bz2 | patch -p1
make ps3_defconfig
patch -p1 -i ../config-2.6.23-rc7-ps3.patch
make && make modules_install
cp System.map /boot/System.map-2.6.23
cp vmlinux /boot/kernel-2.6.23
ln -s /usr/src/linux/include/asm/page.h /usr/include/asm/
genkernel --kerneldir=/usr/src/linux initrd 
nano -w /etc/kboot.conf

The UDF_2.50-linux-2.6.23-rc6.patch.bz2 file comes from http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=300295&group_id=295&func=browse]UDF patches. Note that there was a reject for one of the patch concerning a comment. The stow directory should be replaced by /usr/local/bin if you are not using stow. The link for page.h avoid an error when making the initrd image.

My kboot.conf file looks like that :

Code: Select all

default=gentoo2
gentoo='sda1&#58;/boot/kernel root=/dev/sda2 real_root=/dev/ram0 sda1&#58;initrd=/boot/initrd init=/linuxrc video=ps3fb&#58;mode&#58;1 rhgb'
gentoo2='sda1&#58;/boot/kernel-2.6.23 real_root=/dev/ram0 root=/dev/ps3da2 sda1&#58;initrd=/boot/initramfs-genkernel-ppc64-2.6.23 init=/linuxrc video=ps3fb&#58;mode&#58;1 rhgb'

The changes in fstab are :

Code: Select all

#/dev/sda1              /boot           ext2            noauto,noatime  1 2
#/dev/sda2              /               ext3            noatime         0 1
#/dev/sda5               /home           ext3            noatime                0 1
#/dev/sda3              none            swap            sw              0 0
/dev/ps3da1             /boot           ext2            noauto,noatime  1 2
/dev/ps3da2             /               ext3            noatime         0 1
/dev/ps3da5               /home           ext3            noatime               0 1
/dev/ps3da3             none            swap            sw              0 0

To note that once you have modified the fstab file, you can't boot your old kernel straight forward. You must run the livecd, mount your root partition and edit the fstab for the sda* versus ps3da* stuffs. Perhaps making links with udev can solve this issu.

I haven't tried the bluetooth and the bluray mounting yet.

ralferoo · Post by **ralferoo** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 3:23 am

dom wrote:To note that once you have modified the fstab file, you can't boot your old kernel straight forward. You must run the livecd, mount your root partition and edit the fstab for the sda* versus ps3da* stuffs. Perhaps making links with udev can solve this issu.

No, udev isn't the problem. The driver was renamed because it should never have been called sd* in the first place. Unless you plan to go back to the old kernel (and to be honest, there's no good reason to) you don't need to keep the old device names in your fstab.

dom wrote:I haven't tried the bluetooth and the bluray mounting yet.

You might also want to apply my patch http://ozlabs.org/pipermail/cbe-oss-dev ... 02490.html, which although Marcel the author of the bluetooth stuff has criticised, nonetheless fixes an important problem that he refuses to recognise - if a controller is connected and the PS3 reboots, the controller will not disconnect unless this patch is applied.

Alternatively, make sure you use

Code: Select all

hidd --killall

somewhere in your shutdown scripts.

dom · Post by **dom** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 8:01 am

ralferoo wrote:
dom wrote:To note that once you have modified the fstab file, you can't boot your old kernel straight forward. You must run the livecd, mount your root partition and edit the fstab for the sda* versus ps3da* stuffs. Perhaps making links with udev can solve this issu.
No, udev isn't the problem. The driver was renamed because it should never have been called sd* in the first place. Unless you plan to go back to the old kernel (and to be honest, there's no good reason to) you don't need to keep the old device names in your fstab.

I must think before posting, lol. To use udev the device must be mounted and to be mounted the old kernel running must know that the device ps3da is in fact sda. So I will stick to 2.6.23.

The only problem I noticed is that the 2.6.23 kernel is not rebooting nor halting right.
Are all the patches including yours already in the official stable kernel 2.6.23.1 ?

jbit wrote: I have a 480p in RGB option on my PS3 (Japanese first revision)
If you don't have it on yours, could you tell me your hardware region/version?
edit
How I get it: Settings>Display Settings>Video Output Settings>AV MULTI/SCART>RGB>(Confirm setting)>480p

I've even tried this with a PS2linux VGA cable and a Sync-on-Green monitor, worked great!

I received the bnc<->rca connectors, after some tries, I a running fine on my old monitor with ps3-video-mode -v 35 -f :-) (720p). 1080i ( -v36) seems to work too. (the AV cable comes from french store score game and costs 9€, the bnc<->rca connectors come from amazon)

ralferoo · Post by **ralferoo** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 8:16 am

dom wrote:The only problem I noticed is that the 2.6.23 kernel is not rebooting nor halting right.

Are all the patches including yours already in the official stable kernel 2.6.23.1 ?

No, you want geoff's git tree (which is 2.6.23-rc5). So, it doesn't have the official 2.6.23.1 patch, but it has a ton of PS3 related patches, including the hardware manager patch which fixes the reboot bug. That's exactly why I upgraded to this version! It also fixes a number of other serious bugs and the ps3fb driver is much quicker at changing modes.

Code: Select all

$ git clone git&#58;//git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/geoff/ps3-linux.git ps3-linux
$ cd ps3-linux
$ make ps3_defconfig

My patch will never be in the official kernel tree because it apparently does the wrong thing - it resets the whole local bluetooth system rather than just that connection. However, it does work a treat to fix the problem I described.

dom · Post by **dom** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 3:21 am

Hi guys,

I did upgrade my ps3 to 2.10 firmware (actually, not me but my child :( ).

My problem is (my life mode on):
my gentoo won't boot anymore from the hdd. So I did some search and saw a patch to apply for ps3fb. But it did not boot either with the patched kernel (built using a chrooted environment from an old gentoo livecd).

Then I searched over kernel.org and found that post : [announce] PS3 Linux Distributor's Starter Kit (v1.5.1) released.
So I installed the new otheros.bld, the linux installation is not anymore seen (no choice on kboot prompt).

Then I did burn a new install cd from this wiki. I did try to e2label from the install prompt and from the chrooted environment, it does the same : no choice from kboot prompt for the hdd.

I also tried the otheros.bld from this new livecd and no luke either.

So here is my question : is there any chance to get my old install booting or does a fresh install is mandatory ? Is a partitionning mandatory when using a new otheros.bld (perhaps the hdd table is stored somewhere within the otheros.bld stuffs) ? I did not see any semantic diffences with my old kboot.conf (kernel 2.6.23) and the one from the live cd.

ouasse · Post by **ouasse** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 5:20 pm

dom, I've got the same problem as yours.

I finally managed to get geoff's kboot-20071220.bld into working, but some manual operation is necessary at boot.

at the "kboot" prompt, type the commands :

Code: Select all

kboot&#58; sh
# mount /dev/ps3da2 /mnt/root
# kboot /mnt/root
kboot&#58; &#91;press enter&#93;

my Linux root partition is indeed /dev/ps3da2.

I really don't know why kboot doesn't directly configure itself by reading the /etc/kboot.conf file in the /dev/ps3da2 partition. Any help about the kboot configuration would be appreciated.

dom · Post by **dom** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 3:46 am

ouasse wrote:dom, I've got the same problem as yours.

I finally managed to get geoff's kboot-20071220.bld into working, but some manual operation is necessary at boot.

at the "kboot" prompt, type the commands :
Code: Select all
kboot&#58; sh
# mount /dev/ps3da2 /mnt/root
# kboot /mnt/root
kboot&#58; &#91;press enter&#93;
my Linux root partition is indeed /dev/ps3da2.

I really don't know why kboot doesn't directly configure itself by reading the /etc/kboot.conf file in the /dev/ps3da2 partition. Any help about the kboot configuration would be appreciated.

Thank you ouasse,

in fact, I did use a lot of otheros.bld, and with the ones I used, your trick did not work, when pushing enter on the kboot prompt, a mounting failed occured.
I reinstalled gentoo with the latest livecd and the same occured. The only thing that succeeded in my case :
- installing the otheros.bld (12202007),
- boot otheros from the gameos
- sh at the kboot prompt
- e2label /dev/ps3da1 /
- kboot /dev/ps3da1
- [enter]

ouasse · Post by **ouasse** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 9:02 am

hi,

my problem is that using kboot-20071220.bld (which is still geoff's latest released kboot), kboot won't mount my root fs by itself, hence automatic boot is not possible.

I still have to manually mount the root fs to be able to get kboot find the correct boot options. setting label of the root partition to / doesn't change anything. could it be because the root fs is on /dev/ps3da2 and not /dev/ps3da1 ? (/dev/ps3da1 is the swap partition). the root partition is ext3-formatted.

could anybody help ?

jimparis · Post by **jimparis** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 11:17 am

ouasse wrote:hi,

my problem is that using kboot-20071220.bld (which is still geoff's latest released kboot), kboot won't mount my root fs by itself, hence automatic boot is not possible.

I still have to manually mount the root fs to be able to get kboot find the correct boot options. setting label of the root partition to / doesn't change anything. could it be because the root fs is on /dev/ps3da2 and not /dev/ps3da1 ? (/dev/ps3da1 is the swap partition). the root partition is ext3-formatted.

could anybody help ?

Sounds like you don't have the bootable flag set on /dev/ps3da2.

dom · Post by **dom** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 12:36 am

jimparis wrote: Sounds like you don't have the bootable flag set on /dev/ps3da2.

Thank you, (re)marking the active partition with fdisk allowed me to boot
without the tricky procedure.

forums.ps2dev.org

New 399€ hardware open question

New 399€ hardware open question

Installing gentoo

Re: Installing gentoo

new 2.10 firmware & old install ?