Finally A Reason To Buy A PS3?
I'm a PlayStation 3 hater and devout Xbox 360 fan, but when I read that Popular Mechanics have modded a PS3 into a PC, my ears perked up.
According to Crave, the procedure is relatively risk free:
Best of all, the magazine says the Linux operating system makeover is perfectly legitimate and relatively risk-free. The procedure involves a hard drive upgrade and relevant software installation. The latter, such as Ubuntu, can also be downloaded free online.The hacked console retains all its original functionalities and can be easily toggled between console and Linux mode via user selectable dual-boot function. However, you will have to back up all game data into an external storage before installation.
Honestly, this sells me a little bit. Now not only is the PS3 the cheapest BluRay player on the market, it's also a pretty hardcore PC and a pretty useless next-gen console videogame player! What're you doing, Microsoft?
NeonMadman
Posted to In Your House on 21 May 2008
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: mods, PlayStation 3, xbox 360
Within one hour of its unboxing, The One became the undisputed ruler of Tiny's entire home. Buy this or despair.
You know, if you weren't a "PlayStation 3 hater", you might have known that this has been available from the beginning. Without cancelling any warrenty. Another thing you might want to know about the system you "hate" is that you can upgrade your hard drive with any standard (ie, not proprietary) disk drive. So, complaints about the 40Gb size is trivial since hard drives costs are low. (Except the XBox/360 hard drive.) Apparently, Sony wanted their system to be more tech friendly than Microsoft.
One drawback is the PS3s limited memory - not hard drive space. You can, however, use your card slots to add swap space with flash cards, which is pretty neat.
I did it, but couldn't honestly say whether or not it sped up system performance. Shortly thereafter I ended up formatting the PS3 for other reasons and haven't gone back to Yellow Dog.
But it was pretty cool to get my PS3 to function as a PC and learn a bit more about Linux in the process!