PS3SDK collaboration invitation

Technical discussion on the newly released and hard to find PS3.

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rapso
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Joined: Mon Mar 28, 2005 6:35 am

Post by rapso »

maaku wrote:rapso,

I'm sorry I don't have the time to engage in a full discussion on this
but your try is pretty good.
* Linux can be streamlined to an embedded profile, but at the cost of many man hours initially and continually in maintenance. Easy for a corporation to do, not so much for a loose-nit homebrew community.
... but that was not the point.
* The existing kernels are all desktop/server derived variants of Linux. There is not, to my knowledge, any true real-time Linux kernel for the PS3/Cell. Real-time linux is always highly-coupled with the architecture that it is designed for, and developing such a kernel for PS3/Cell will take a non-trivial amount of time and resources to do properly. It's not just a matter of hitting some checkboxes and compiling.
that was just an example and also not the point.
* The ps3sdk has very small, but very specific needs that do not match up very closely with Linux (even with the patches Sony and those on this forum have made).
yeah, I think that's why its written from scratch, rather than porting yet again another kernel.
* Don't fall into the "Linux will be easier because it's Linux" fallacy. Linux is around ~3 million lines of code. MINIX is just 4000 lines of kernel code. L4 is of similar size, and already ported to 64-bit PowerPC. That's three orders of magnitude difference (yes, I know we are comparing micro- to macro-kernels, but for reasons of software engineering complexity it is relevant). What's more, these kernels already have reliable implementations of feature sets needed for real-time embedded programming and are simple enough to not require the extensive tweaking in the port that Linux RTOS options do.
that was just my sample for you, so you dont fall into "[place here any existing os] will be easier, because it's already there".
Most people don't know, or underestimate even if they do the amount of work that must go into creating and maintaining a custom linux kernel for a real-time application. It is my professional opinion that the ps3sdk could be finished faster, and with better satisfaction by adopting an existing, smaller, non-Linux solution.
and from what i've seen, mc is pretty good in ramping up his own micro kernels.
EDIT: But perhaps we should agree to disagree, if you're still not convinced.
yeah, and probably mc coded as many lines as we wrote, but on his kernel ;)
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mc
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Post by mc »

maaku wrote:MC, are you still here? Unless I hear from you, I'm going to begin porting either MINIX or L4 to Cell, but I could use some of your expert knowledge... (or anyone else here that is familiar with kernel mode PPE).
I'm here.

Please feel free to start porting MINIX, or Mach, or NetBSD, or whatever you might like. It's a different project from this one though (although I'm certain some results could be shared).
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guilt
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Post by guilt »

Hi MC,

I downloaded the source using BZR. I think I'll need Linux to run the bootstrap (aclocal/autoconf/automake etc) ... I was wondering if you could also ship a working config.h/Makefile for the prebuilt windows toolchain. That would be really useful.

Thanks a lot,
-Guilt
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ifcaro
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Post by ifcaro »

Hi,

I managed to compile the toolchain and ps3sdk on windows with mingw. Then I went to compile the examples and I have generated an elf.

The question is: Now how do I run this elf in the otheros?

Some time ago I compiled the otheros-demo and it generated a bld.

Are there any bld with which it can launch these elfs?
guilt
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Post by guilt »

@ifcaro: can you post your makefile/build scripts?

I guess you would need to gzip it and rename it to otheros.bld .. then it should work on the PS3.
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mc
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Post by mc »

@guilt: Well, I don't have such a config.h, because I don't do windows, but if you create one that works, I can merge it to my repository.

@ifcaro: You can convert the ELF to a BLD as guild suggests (although you need to convert the ELF to raw binary using "ppu-objcopy -O binary" before gzipping it), but if you have an otheros partition on your harddrive (formatted as EXT2/EXT3), it's more convenient to use mcload, which can run the ELFs directly.
Flying at a high speed
Having the courage
Getting over crisis
I rescue the people
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ifcaro
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Post by ifcaro »

mc wrote:@guilt: Well, I don't have such a config.h, because I don't do windows, but if you create one that works, I can merge it to my repository.

@ifcaro: You can convert the ELF to a BLD as guild suggests (although you need to convert the ELF to raw binary using "ppu-objcopy -O binary" before gzipping it), but if you have an otheros partition on your harddrive (formatted as EXT2/EXT3), it's more convenient to use mcload, which can run the ELFs directly.
Hi, I have converted the elf to a bld and have run the hello world :D

I have uploaded my ps3dev to megaupload. Here is the link http://www.megaupload.com/?d=15HD693J
ps2devman
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Post by ps2devman »

Great! Thanks for sharing!
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ifcaro
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Post by ifcaro »

@mc: How can I set the boot flag for rebooting into gameos?

I have tried several ways and I did not succeed.

PD: I am making a simple graphics lib :D
carlosn
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Post by carlosn »

If you look at the source code in otheros_demo_1.0, you will see a function call to set_boot_flag(0) in demo.c. The source code for the function is in flash.c
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