Cryptic message from YellowDog

[StrontiumDog]

Hi,

Yesterday on the YellowDog General mailing list, the following was posted by a yellow dog employee:

Message: 1
Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 13:04:06 -0700
From: Owen Stampflee <[email protected]>
Subject: [ydl-gen] YDL.net Enhanced PS3 Users, I have a surprise for
you all.
To: yellowdog-general <[email protected]>

Update your GameOS so you'll be ready ;)

Thats it, thats the whole message. Obviously no sane person would update their GameOS on his advice, but it will be interesting to see what they are going to release.

My Guess is a Kernel that includes Bluetooth Sixaxis support and a 200+MB MTD Driver using RSX memory.....

Strontium.

[jimparis]

Neither of those requires an updated GameOS, of course :)

[urchin]

OpenGL or Wifi? (both of which could require a hypervisor upgrade)

I still reckon there's something in 1.5 that they don't want us to find.

[ldesnogu]

Message: 1
Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 13:04:06 -0700
From: Owen Stampflee <[email protected]>
Subject: [ydl-gen] YDL.net Enhanced PS3 Users, I have a surprise for
you all.
To: yellowdog-general <[email protected]>

Update your GameOS so you'll be ready ;)

That certainly is intriguing :)

Obviously no sane person would update their GameOS on his advice

And why would a sane person not update?

[StrontiumDog]

Obviously no sane person would update their GameOS on his advice

And why would a sane person not update?[/quote]

Well, Sony have a track record of taking features away from the homebrew scene in firmware releases, not giving them more. So if you upgrade, you may be screwing yourself.

[mbf]

Well, although as usual they did not give the full change log of 1.70, it makes things better for those of us playing PS2 games on the PS3. FFXII and Soulcalibur 3 are now working perfectly so I'm happy :)

As for "homebrew", the situation is different than it is on the PSP. As long as they don't remove the Linux support or reduce the features (which would be hard lol), I'm fine with it.

I personally would bet my lunch money on Wifi support since Yellowdog mentioned a while ago on this subject that they were testing code provided by Sony.

[ldesnogu]

OpenGL or Wifi? (both of which could require a hypervisor upgrade)

Hint towards WiFi: kernel

[StrontiumDog]

Yep, unfortunately its just WiFi. And in a weird twist its either WiFi or Wired, but not both at the same time (both are eth0)....

Date: Tue, 01 May 2007 10:36:17 -0700
From: Owen Stampflee <[email protected]>
Subject: [ydl-gen] PS3 Wifi on YDL.net Enhanced Howto

1. Update the firmware on your PS3
This can be achieved from GameOS with the Software Update function
in settings.

2. Download the new PS3 wifi enabled kernel:
URL: http://ydl.net/enhanced/updates/yellowd ... .ppc64.rpm

3. Install the new kernel
rpm -ivh /path/to/kernel-ps3-2.6.16-20070425.ydl.3.ppc64.rpm

4. Edit /etc/kboot.conf
Take your default kernel line, and make a copy of it and then modify
the original line to point to the new kernel.

For example, if your default kernel line is:
ydl='/dev/sda1:/vmlinux-2.6.16-20061110.ydl.2ps3 initrd=/dev/sda1:/initrd-2.6.16-20061110.ydl.2ps3.img root=/dev/sda2 video=ps3fb:mode:3 rhgb'

The new section would like this:
ydl='/dev/sda1:/vmlinux-2.6.16-20070425.ydl.3ps3 initrd=/dev/sda1:/initrd-2.6.16-20070425.ydl.3ps3.img root=/dev/sda2 init=/sbin/init video=ps3fb:mode:3 rhgb'
oldydl='/dev/sda1:/vmlinux-2.6.16-20061110.ydl.2ps3 initrd=/dev/sda1:/initrd-2.6.16-20061110.ydl.2ps3.img root=/dev/sda2 video=ps3fb:mode:3 rhgb'

Where oldydl is your original kernel.

5. Reboot

6. Configuring Wireless
a) Unplug the ethernet cable, eth0 is both the wired and wireless
Ethernet port on PS3s.
b) Launch system-config-network (Network in the Settings menu)
c) Delete the eth0 (gelic_net) interface.
d) Create a Wireless connection.
e) You may now configure that wireless connection as you would with
other YDL versions. One note here that confused me when I did this
was that the ESSID specified as "Auto", when I actually needed to
remove that and select the Auto radio button.
f) You can now activate the interface.

7. Enjoy your new wireless enabled PS3.

[ldesnogu]

Yep, unfortunately its just WiFi. And in a weird twist its either WiFi or Wired, but not both at the same time (both are eth0)....

Too bad :)

Now it remains to be seen what other changes made their way into this new kernel...

[laichung]

Somethings about storage is changed. Take a look here

PS3 ROM Storage?
PS3 FLASH ROM Storage?
What does it refer to? Of course not the firmware~

[jimparis]

Code: Select all

+config PS3_STORAGE_ROM
+       tristate "PS3 ROM Storage Driver"
+       depends on PS3_STORAGE_BUS
+       default y
+       help
+         Include support for the PS3 ROM Storage.
+
+         This support is required to access the PS3 BD/DVD/CD-ROM drive.
+         In general, all users will say Y or M.
+
+config PS3_STORAGE_FLASH
+       tristate "PS3 FLASH ROM Storage Driver"
+       depends on PS3_STORAGE_BUS
+       default y
+       help
+         Include support for the PS3 FLASH ROM Storage.
+
+         This support is required to access the PS3 FLASH ROM, which
+         contains the boot loader and some boot options.
+         In general, all users will say Y or M.

[urchin]

I dumped the repository values (using lv1_get_repository_node_value) for the device bus a couple of weeks ago and I remember there being entries corresponding to PS3_DEV_TYPE_STOR_ROM and PS3_DEV_TYPE_STOR_FLASH.

I forgot to add the info to the wiki - I will add it asap.

[mbf]

And in a weird twist its either WiFi or Wired, but not both at the same time (both are eth0)....

It's the same under the Game OS. It seems that the WiFi in the PS3 is just a WiFi to ethernet bridge piping into the PS3's ethernet interface. And the MAC address is the same for both.

[ralferoo]

I must admit that I'm certainly still curious as to why they're so keen for people to update.

Having wifi is a nice feature, but hardly something that's critical to almost every Linux user. I'd be surprised if even 10% of users actually use wifi in preference to wired.

To me, it certainly doesn't seem like an event worthy of "updating just so you'll be ready" particularly as the code is obviously still in development and testing... So, what's the real reason they want people to upgrade?

[Ps3Rips]

I'm guessing its because 1.70 contains alot of bug fixes (possible exploits that have been closed).

Get everyone off buggy firmware so that exploit routes are closed and the platform remains more secure.

[ldesnogu]

Get everyone off buggy firmware so that exploit routes are closed and the platform remains more secure.

Oh, some exploits were found? Got some link for uneducated people? :)

[StrontiumDog]

I searched the source on kernel.org and there are no updates, apart from config changes, to support WiFi. And YellowDog had this to say on the matter yesterday:

We're still shipping 2.6.16 for PS3s, although there is now a new
version with wireless capabilities. This kernel is only available on
YDL.net.

YDL.net is the subscriber only site, so there are no public patches for this yet. I wouldn't recommend anyone update their firmware until this new source can be properly examined to see what changes were made, and then probing those (supposedly new) hypervisor calls in the existing firmware to see if it works or not.

If anyone has a copy of the source of this kernel from YDL.net, posting a link would be a good thing :)

[weltall]

what about this?
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/g ... efa1574942

[StrontiumDog]

what about this?
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/g ... efa1574942

Yep, that looks like it.

For the interested, the whole patch can be found at:
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/g ... efa1574942

Notes:

It is all done using the pre-existing call lv1_net_control.
There are no new hypervisor entry points added, although it is possible the lv1_net_control has new (or newly enabled) functionality.

The code doesn't do any checks on the firmware version using lv1_get_version_info which it should do, if there is functionality that is not available, depending on your firmware version. If the firmware version matters as it stand, you will get a failure with no explanation as to why. Thats BAD. Unless the firmware version doesn't matter, in which case it doesn't need to be checked...

[laichung]

I think it has some checking process before wireless lan modules activate. Since 20g verison doesnt has the WLAN hareware. May be it is done by hypervisor function.

[weltall]

yes it matters since the last ~4 revisions or the kernel will stop being able to mount the internal disk (1.50) but maybe they don't affect the wlan support

[ldesnogu]

yes it matters since the last ~4 revisions or the kernel will stop being able to mount the internal disk (1.50) but maybe they don't affect the wlan support

If I understood correctly on IRC yesterday, you are using Geoff's PS3 kernel tree.

Nothing proves TerraSoft's kernel is just a version of that GIT tree. I doubt they would have "released" a kernel that's not able to mount the internal drive :)

I guess we will have to wait for that kernel to be freed from YDL.net...

[weltall]

yes it matters since the last ~4 revisions or the kernel will stop being able to mount the internal disk (1.50) but maybe they don't affect the wlan support

If I understood correctly on IRC yesterday, you are using Geoff's PS3 kernel tree.

Nothing proves TerraSoft's kernel is just a version of that GIT tree. I doubt they would have "released" a kernel that's not able to mount the internal drive :)

I guess we will have to wait for that kernel to be freed from YDL.net...

in fact it isn't (eg: card drives doesn't work so good while on the ydl one they do) but you can see for sure the part of the wifi.
plus the ydl one is still on .16 while the git one is at .21

[ldesnogu]

Geoff has updated his distribution starter kit: http://ozlabs.org/pipermail/cbe-oss-dev ... 01795.html

[acidraven]

And in a weird twist its either WiFi or Wired, but not both at the same time (both are eth0)....

It's the same under the Game OS. It seems that the WiFi in the PS3 is just a WiFi to ethernet bridge piping into the PS3's ethernet interface. And the MAC address is the same for both.

Actually I know this is not a limit int he game OS, at least not in the newer firmware (that added the game os media networking) I have played mp'3 from my desktop computer to my PS3 (wired Connection) to my PSP connected to my PS3 Using the PS3 Wireless live play. have also done video. now it is one of the only current way's to do it.

My first question about it is can the PS3 in linux be used as a AP (yes right now it would just be a wireless connection to it but that may change) or are you thinking of useing it the other way around and use the PS3 to connect to your wireless router and then have a lan on the PS3 side as well?