OtherOS removed in Firmware update 3.21

YDL running on the Sony Playstation 3

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Re: OtherOS removed in Firmware update 3.21

Postby Iguana » 01 Apr 2010, 23:17

Hey, since some people here are considering getting a new PS3 for the current and future firmware updates... Well i was wondering if replacing the hard drive would solve the problem for those who wanted to have the Linux operating system and the features of the the newer firmware updates on their ps3, even though Linux would be on one drive and the newer firmware features on another.. So, my question is would it be possible to have Linux on 1 drive and the newer firmware features on another drive?? :?: Or is that impossible?
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Re: OtherOS removed in Firmware update 3.21

Postby keefy » 01 Apr 2010, 23:19

Iguana wrote:Hey, since some people here are considering getting a new PS3 for the current and future firmware updates... Well i was wondering if replacing the hard drive would solve the problem for those who wanted to have the Linux operating system and the features of the the newer firmware updates on their ps3, even though Linux would be on one drive and the newer firmware features on another.. So, my question is would it be possible to have Linux on 1 drive and the newer firmware features on another drive?? :?: Or is that impossible?

Impossible.
The firmware is flashed onto a chip not stored on a hard drive.
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Re: OtherOS removed in Firmware update 3.21

Postby Frost » 01 Apr 2010, 23:27

keefy wrote:
Iguana wrote:Hey, since some people here are considering getting a new PS3 for the current and future firmware updates... Well i was wondering if replacing the hard drive would solve the problem for those who wanted to have the Linux operating system and the features of the the newer firmware updates on their ps3, even though Linux would be on one drive and the newer firmware features on another.. So, my question is would it be possible to have Linux on 1 drive and the newer firmware features on another drive?? :?: Or is that impossible?

Impossible.
The firmware is flashed onto a chip not stored on a hard drive.

What he said. It sure would be nice if that were the case, but your only option is to not upgrade the firmware and get a secondary PS3.

This is honestly what I'm considering doing. I'll evaluate my options on getting a PS3 Slim in the future for continued online gaming, and use my launch model fat PS3 for offline PS1/2/3 gaming, BD playback, and YDL 6.2.

For the moment, the update bypass buys us some more time to consider our options and figure out where we're going to go from here.
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Re: OtherOS removed in Firmware update 3.21

Postby knicknak » 02 Apr 2010, 02:09

More venting:

Subject: I had a Dream

It would be amazing if Sony's engineers that don't have the capacity to implement allowing users to organize xmb content into custom folders, cross game chat, MKV playback, or countless other features that customers actually want, decided to dedicate its meager resources to starting a futile neverending war prempitvely (no one has pirated a ps3 game yet) with hackers that are smarter than Sony.

As the first salvo they could take a meaningless action of removing a feature for legitimate users which will prompt law suits and waste more resources. This action would have zero bearing on fixing the security holes in the system since anyone could go back to a prior firmware and exploit those security holes.

Sony could say loud and clearly to the hacking community "Pay attention to us! Waste our resources!" cause god knows for 3 years Sony's PS3 has been left alone for the most part.

PS3 "This is Living"

---

Subject: What is really being accomplished

What was accomplished by this new "upgrade" and who was the focus?

The customer was not important for this update. Lose a feature, Lose 10GB, Lose a bunch of time if you want it back.

Security was not important for this update. There is no PS3 piracy right now. The security hole does not go away - anyone can go back to a previous firmware.

So what was important? Some Executive LOOKING like he/she is doing something in response to the announcement that someone hacked the PS3. Doing nothing (which was probably a better course of action - at least at this time) takes a lot of balls in the corporate world and if you are accountable to someone who wants "Action" it's easier to Cover Your A$$ by doing something, anything in response. Politics FTL.

This executive or team is just following the corporate motto "Sony make.believe" you are doing something.
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Re: OtherOS removed in Firmware update 3.21

Postby otakusupreme » 02 Apr 2010, 03:56

screw sony. i say we all get xbox 360's and never get anything again made by sony.

( a lone sony boy standing in front of a bunch of unsold PS3's wept one tear as he read this comment. )
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Re: OtherOS removed in Firmware update 3.21

Postby ohm » 02 Apr 2010, 05:35

otakusupreme wrote:screw sony. i say we all get xbox 360's and never get anything again made by sony.


An xbox would be not better and probably worse, You will still be stuck with the controller. I would consider keeping the PS3 if I could use a keyboard to play games with instead of a controller.

Sony is long overdue for a real console update, the present console just doesn't cut it for gaming any more unless you don't mind the low res or jerky frame rates. Play any game PS3 game that runs on a half way decent PC with a good video card and you will see. In any event, contributing to Linux is what is important to me, the platform is not. In that sense PS3 Linux is a distraction. Since there is a not a new PS3 known to be in the works, ready to be released, I think that now is a good time to dump PS3 stuff. At least then I can justify getting a BD player that really works (kinda tired of the number of BD disks that just do not work on my PS3). Speaking of which, I kinda wonder what will be in the PS4. I doubt it will be a Power variant since to my knowledge, IBM is mostly designing server chips (IBM has never been able to manufacture low cost products). But if the next processor it is not a Cell then all the game programming will have to change and the developers that spent all that time working with the silly Cell assymetric design will be a bit screwed. But if Sony continues the tie in to IBM it means that Sony are limited when it comes to chip suppliers and worst, they are missing out on getting parts from the prime silicon supplier. I suspect that the only way that Sony can come close to matching the performance of a PC gaming platform is to switch to a PC platform. At least then the game developers would be able to eliminate the redundant effort of targeting such different platform architectures. No matter what though, Sony have to do something to keep up with the truly fantastic advances that there have been in GPU's. Most likely the only thing that the PS4 will have in common with the PS3 is that PS4 will also not be BC.
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Re: OtherOS removed in Firmware update 3.21

Postby ppietro » 02 Apr 2010, 06:15

ohm wrote:Speaking of which, I kinda wonder what will be in the PS4. I doubt it will be a Power variant since to my knowledge, IBM is mostly designing server chips (IBM has never been able to manufacture low cost products)


Actually - IBM has a couple of different POWER divisions. The team that designed the PowerPC core for the Cell is still going full tilt, to the best of my knowledge. They are completely separate from the server team - they're the ones located in Austin, TX - the embedded division.

This team did the PowerPC core for the Cell, the triple PowerPC core for the Xbox 360, and the PowerPC chip in the GameCube/Wii. This team at IBM is doing extremely well right now - they have high speed designs at low power - very popular with OEMs. Unless ARM starts moving aggressively in this direction - and I think they are - IBM will probably continue to have a hammerlock on this technology.

If you want to find out more about this team, I suggest you read this book:
The Race for a New Game Machine: Creating the Chips Inside the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3

This really explains why IBM has dominated this market.

Cheers,
Paul

P.S. The book also explains why Apple never got a low power POWER G5. The quick summary is that the PPU was originally started as the G5 for Apple. The Austin team designed the PPU and G5 in parallel. Then, when they added the 360 development to the mix, they had three customers using the exact same design. In order to hold to Sony's & Microsoft's aggressive time frame, they started dropping features. When they dropped out-of-order processing - absolutely necessary for servers, but not necessary for game consoles - Apple got furious and jumped teams to the IBM POWER server division. This set the stage for the eventual defection to Intel, since the Server team was unable to achieve the power consumption targets of the Austin team.
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Re: OtherOS removed in Firmware update 3.21

Postby Nightmare » 02 Apr 2010, 11:21

Can anyone program an open-source proxy for Linux that prevent Firmware updates?

How the proxy work (currently for Windows/Mac OS) is described here:
http://www.haxnetwork.net/showthread.php?t=9745


Aaron use linux, i think. At least he use lighttpd as web server. But there is no code.
http://rvlution.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=123
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Re: OtherOS removed in Firmware update 3.21

Postby ppietro » 02 Apr 2010, 12:37

Nightmare wrote:Can anyone program an open-source proxy?

Aaron use linux, i think. At least he use lighttpd as web server. But there is no code.
http://rvlution.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=123


That's because he's not doing a proxy. It's more clever than that. What's he's done is spoof DNS.

He's set up a custom DNS lookup so that when a PS3 goes to reach a "certain server", he routes it to his local http server with a text table that returns a "positive lookup value". I think that's about as specific as I want to get. :D

Frankly, as long as you put your own DNS server as the secondary, and his as the first, it's a much more elegant solution than a proxy, IMHO.

Cheers,
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Re: OtherOS removed in Firmware update 3.21

Postby billb » 02 Apr 2010, 13:18

So far I've only updated my "least valuable" PS3 to 3.21 -- the 80GB CECHK with no PS2 compatibility. The other two are 60GB CECHA's -- one I plan to use for running Linux full time, and the other I haven't decided yet. I may try out some of the posted methods for avoiding the update for now. The GameOS does retain some useful features without updating -- I can still access my mediatomb media server on FW 3.15. And for my primary gaming system I got a new PS3 Slim 120GB which I immediately upgraded to 500GB before I even turned it on the first time. :wink:

On various forums and mailing lists I'm seeing plenty of users opting to stick with Linux / older firmware vs. updating just for PSN access. Our little community won't die -- it just got even more exclusive! :lol: We might even still see FreeBSD ported to the PS3:

http://lists.ozlabs.org/pipermail/cbe-o ... 07245.html
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Thank You

Postby sok_linux » 02 Apr 2010, 15:18

Well that's it then, it may have been bad joke, but alas it was not.

It's only matter time when running linux will be totally closed off the PS3 so in this moment I'd like to write a note of thanks.
Computers are temporary but from the help and kindness I've experienced on this forum from ChronoCloud, Paul, and everyone
who posted, I'd like to thank you for the lasting memory that OpenSource is better and for the questions you helped me resolve.

I will take what I have learned here and apply it to my next Linux machine, thanks for opening the door.


Adam
There is only one thing you can do, so do it.
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Re: OtherOS removed in Firmware update 3.21

Postby somedoc » 02 Apr 2010, 19:04

Thanks to everyone on these forums, including billb and ppietro for all your hard work. I foresee updating to the newer firmwares. Unfortunately, psn movies are viewed quite a bit by the family. Its a shame such a decision has to be made by the consumer.
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Re: OtherOS removed in Firmware update 3.21

Postby Starman535 » 02 Apr 2010, 19:38

I guess that will be the end of YDL for me. I use the PS3 also for YDL, PS3 gaming, and Blue-Ray playback. If my kids do th update in my absence, the PS3 will be forever stuck with 10 Gb for gameOS, 150 useless. Only other option is to try to obtain an old G5 :evil:
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Re: OtherOS removed in Firmware update 3.21

Postby sirgrinalot » 02 Apr 2010, 19:49

I'm still on 3.15 and with the DNS server reroute, I am able to do anything I would normally do online so it's like the update never happened :o

I noticed some people are still on 2.30 and using this same method to get online. I should have stopped updating before they added that horrid box in the upper right with the scrolling banner and before they made the text fade out on a text based menu I mean what the hell was that coder thinking "they will like this fading text, they won't be able to see where they are going unless they are moving all the time, but they will like it", but they added more features so I took the hit. This time around, it is just uncalled for, They added nothing, nothing for me to weigh ANY pros vs cons, they only removed a feature. So this time around it was a pretty easy decision to not update.
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Re: OtherOS removed in Firmware update 3.21

Postby ppietro » 02 Apr 2010, 20:08

sirgrinalot wrote:I noticed some people are still on 2.30 and using this same method to get online.


If only we could downgrade firmware. I miss the old Playstation3 logo. :D

Cheers,
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