YDL versus FC5 versus FC6 on PS3

[jerryyyyy]

Well, I have gotten all three of these to run. Here is my discussion.

Updated 1/14/07

First of all, YDL is the easiest to install. The xorg.conf file is already there. Most importantly, it runs fast. Downside, is that it is missing a number of rpms that several of us would like for programming.

FC5 and FC6 both will install. The install of YDL takes me 1.5 hours, FC5 took 2.5 and FC6 took 3.5! FC5 runs slower than YDL and FC6 runs even slower than FC5.

FC6 fills 99% of the 10GB allocated to the PS3 other OS in its full install. I removed all the extra language options to get down to 75%.

Neither FC5 or FC6 to my knowledge, load drivers for hardware graphics acceleration (nvidia) or for WiFi. On ths programming side, I installed two rpms that allowed me to compile my flight simulation software:

freeglut-2.4.0-4.ppc and the development package.

My software compiled, but as suspected I got error "unsable to create direct context rendering for window". I am on the look for the NVIDIA dribver that might work.

I resolved the display problems with the dollowing command found on the web:

ps3videomode -v 3 -f

The number '3' above corresponds to a 720p resolution, so you will want to enter a different number in that spot to achieve a different resolution. The resolutions are associated as follows:

1:480i 2:480p 3:720p 4:1080i and 5:1080p for NTSC territories

6:576i 7:576p 8:720p 9:1080i and 10:1080p for PAL territories

FC6 supposed mounts audio disks and dvd but I got an error "Totem could not startup". DVDs did not automatically mount. So this is not any easier than YDL.

Soooo, bottom line is that there is a downside to all installs. I hope that YDL will eventually support WiFi, but this is not a show-stopper since ethernet works for al these distros. The graphics hardware problem is a show-stopper and no distro seems to solve that problem. It was possible to compile OpenGL programs with FC6, but this will be worthless without hardware acceleration. I suspect that YDL would be able to do the same.

At the end of the day, YDL seems to run faster than the FC installs... but hard to tell as I am running in 1080p mode. All distros are missing major parts. I think I am going to let all this stuff sleep for 6 months and see what happens.

Cheers

[Calzonie]

I'm surprised not to see Gentoo listed, I've tried YDL FC5/6, and just recently Gentoo. In my opinion, Gentoo while much harder to install, runs much better... Speed, memory, disk space, all better with Gentoo so far.

[jerryyyyy]

I'm not familiar with Gentoo. I have done a lot of Fedora and Red Hat installs, I guess because when I replaced our SGI machines with Dells, they came with Red Hat. I am afraid I will not get to far here without Nvidia drivers anyway. I have not given up using this engine. I have t o check with some people at the University as they have a project in protein folding runing on PS3s allegedly.