RHEL6 ppc64 PS3

[ACEFOMIQUZ]

I've tried to install RHEL 6 ppc64 beta edition on my PS3 as it's the first pure 64bit distribution for PowerPC,but failed of course.
I want to know why.Thanks!

[ppietro]

I've tried to install RHEL 6 ppc64 beta edition on my PS3 as it's the first pure 64bit distribution for PowerPC,but failed of course.
I want to know why.Thanks!

According to here:
http://www.redhat.com/rhel/compare/

It appears to be for IBM POWER machines only.
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/

That's confirmed here:
https://hardware.redhat.com
if you search for ppc.

This would preclude usage on your PS3, since IBM hardware has a different base architecture. I'm talking motherboard chipsets here - not ppc processors. The basic "map" of system I/O is different for IBM Power machines than the PS3.

Basically, the consumer OSes - like YDL, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc. - have customizations to allow it to boot on PS3 that RHEL doesn't have.

You would have to customize the RHEL 6 with the same tweaks as YDL to get it to run. And - I have no idea what those are. It might be as simple as replacing the RHEL kernel with a custom PS3-aware kernel - or it might be more extensive.

There may be some instructions here:
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/ ... ps3-howto/

Cheers,
Paul

[ACEFOMIQUZ]

I'll try it,thanks again!

[billb]

Supposing you did get it running, wouldn't it run slower than ppc32?

[ppietro]

Supposing you did get it running, wouldn't it run slower than ppc32?

On a PS3, it should run slower due to the increased memory address width (32 bit pointers vs. 64 bit pointers), and possible PowerPC architecture compromises:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3098&p=11887#p11892

The memory hit would be worth it if you had a lot of system RAM, but since the PS3 is limited to 256 Megs, this negates the advantage.

The 64 bit architecture would have an advantage for 64 bit integer math calculations. Not for floating point - I think the 32 bit ppc calculates them with 64 bit precision anyway.

Cheers,
Paul

[ACEFOMIQUZ]

Supposing you did get it running, wouldn't it run slower than ppc32?

On a PS3, it should run slower due to the increased memory address width (32 bit pointers vs. 64 bit pointers), and possible PowerPC architecture compromises:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3098&p=11887#p11892

The memory hit would be worth it if you had a lot of system RAM, but since the PS3 is limited to 256 Megs, this negates the advantage.

The 64 bit architecture would have an advantage for 64 bit integer math calculations. Not for floating point - I think the 32 bit ppc calculates them with 64 bit precision anyway.


Cheers,
Paul

Maybe we can change the result if we use a better compiler for PowerPC 970 processor.
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3098&p=11887#p39708

[ppietro]

Maybe we can change the result if we use a better compiler for PowerPC 970 processor.
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3098&p=11887#p39708

I'm afraid the answer is still no - not really.

Answered in the other thread - followups there please - locking this one.

Cheers,
Paul