With Linux making big inroads on the PS3, it was only a matter of time before people started messing around with it to unlock new functionality. And Linux users would know that MythTV is one of the must-have applications if you're deciding to use your PC as a PVR. While people had reported installing and using MythTV successfully, it's biggest point (recording and replaying recorded TV) was moot since the PS3 didn't have a TV tuner.

It was only a matter of time before someone tried a USB TV Tuner and successfully put together a working set of drivers for it. And that someone would be Takeshi Yaegashi who has been successful in patching the Plextor ConvertX PX-M402U's Linux drivers to work properly on the PS3. The problem was that the original GO7007 Video4Linux2 drivers didn't run properly on a 32bit userland/64bit kernel environment.

The released patches will patch the GO7007 Video4Linux2 drivers and the Addon CD to improve compatibility with the said environment, which is common on all PS3 Linux distros. What you'll have to do is patch the drivers, then patch the Addon CD file and finally compile the kernel given in the Addon CD. If this sounds a bit difficult, you can wait for distros to appear with this patches built in.

I would expect Gentoo to be the first with the patches, seeing how they're already thinking of including MythTV on the Gentoo Live CD. If you do understand the consequences and want to go ahead with this, download the patches, the new Addon CD, patch both of them, and then use the new customised kernel with your distro. Expect a thorough how-to soon!

Download: [GO7007 Video4Linux2 driver - (wis-go7007-linux-0.9.8.tar.bz2)]
Download: [Patch for the GO7007 driver - ps3-go7007.patch]
Download: [New PS3 Cell Addon CD (20061208)]
Download: [Patch for the Addon CD - ps3-compat-ioctl32.patch]

A day after the PS3 Japan launch madness, all of us here at QJ had a chance to look back and see exactly what info we had missed. I had the responsibility of checking out the Linux side of things. And while the article which I wrote yesterday was pretty much spot on, there's a few more things which I could get out of the documents released.

So without further ado, I'll make a list of things which I've learned today:

How Linux will work: The PS3 will use kboot as its Linux bootloader. The way this works, you'll first have to download OtherOS installer (not released, yet) from Sony's official site. The next thing you'll need is a customised kboot "image". In case anyone's wondering, no, it isn't a picture. It's a single archive that will contain all the stuff needed to boot Linux.

The important thing to note here is that kboot, in itself, is nothing more than a sort of a loader which will use Lilo or GRUB to load the Linux kernel. I've noticed that neither kboot or GRUB are released for the PPC architecture. I don't know about GRUB, but I'll hazard a guess that Sony have ported kboot to the PPC arch, and since it's released under the GPL license, Sony will have to release its source code.

Moving on to the installation part, it seems that it will be pretty easy. I'll write up a small how-to here. Please refer to the already-released documents for the full instructions:

• Format your PS3's HDD into 2 partitions. The Format utility seems to be very intuitive and easy-to-use.
• Download the OtherOS Installer from Sony's Open Platform for PS3 site.
• Download the customised kboot image for your specific distro (Will be supplied with the distro?)
• Put both of them on an external USB device in a special folder structure using your PC.
• Plug it into the PS3 and select the "Install Other OS" in the PS3 menu.
• It will scan the external storage device and list the Other OS installer.
• At this point, going ahead and selecting the install option will install kboot (the bootloader) to your PS3's HDD.
• Bear in mind that kboot is almost like a secondary bootloader. kboot will be initialised by the PS3's own bootloader, which will be protected, to say the least.
• Once kboot is installed to your PS3's HDD, it's time to install the actual distro itself. Since the guide itself explains with the example of Fedora Core 5, I will be following it. The main reason is that I still don't know where the customised kboot image comes from. Will the distributions officially release them? Or will we have to go around looking for them on unofficial sites? We'll know more as time goes on...
• Anyways, once you've installed kboot, just go to the System Settings in the PS3's menu and select the default system as Other OS.
• Once you reboot your PS3, you will now be booted into kboot. You're almost there! All that's left is installing Fedora Core 5 after following the instructions on screen.

Once into Linux, you will be able to use it like any other computer. You will be able to fire up Firefox and browse the intarwebs, or load MythTV and convert your PS3 into a true-blue media center. It's as good as a shiny new PC once you're into Linux.

But wait! That's not all. After checking out the documents, I did find a few small bits of info which are big news in itself:

• You will be able to switch to the PS3's game OS from Linux.
• You will be able to use the Blu-ray drive to mount all types of discs including Blu-ray discs!
  

Looking at the fact that we will be able to mount Blu-ray discs in Linux, my mind wanders around to the fact that it could be possible to dump the PS3's game discs, and it might be easier than Sony would think. Currently, I can hazard a guess that their special Blu-ray drivers for Linux will not allow you to do so, but give it a few weeks and the hackers can easily come out with modified drivers to make the drive work according to their fancies. That's all speculation though, I won't go into much detail.

The only thing which I really want to get cleared is the situation with the kboot images. Knowing the Linux community, I can safely take it for granted that someone somewhere will create a special kboot image for your favorite distro. It's just a matter of time before the PS3 is released in the US and embraced by the modding and Linux communities. At QJ, we'll be making sure that all you Linux users can use it on your PS3. We will be covering everything in the PS3 scene as and when it happens.

Download: [Corresponding documents for Linux on the PS3]
Visit: [PS3 Linux Forums]