Linux performance & distros

[lullu]

Hello everyone! :)
In my first post at these great forums, which I believe I placed to right thread, I would like to ask You all few simple questions related to linux usage. A short time ago I was deciding wheter to buy a low-end new pc or PS3 - great HTPC due to linux possibility and all other kind of staff - my precious :). I believed it would provide enough performance for all basic apps.. I tried Ubuntu, ub. with XFACE and also installed RSX driver, now I am running OpenSuse 10.3.. What makes me a litle bit angry is how my system perform. I always stop unrequired services, remove unnecessary apps and try to do my system as light as possible but I still experience mouse lags, firefox is slow as hell and also calling mp3 player from bar is a punishment for me.. So now my questions :)

1)Which distros and which environment do You use?
2)How does Your system perform?
3)Feel free to discuss related staff :)

PS: Excuse my english :) And thanks to all members for their work and effort. lullu

[DrP]

I used Ubuntu 7.1. I too disable all unwanted services. It runs ok I guess but not like PC. Lack of system RAM seems to be the problem. That and the software rendering video. I found on my second install things seemed to run a little better. I was running a slightly lower video resolution and increased the swap partition from 512 to 1024Mb. My aim of installing Ubuntu was to see how quick video file conversion could be (e.g. DivX -> PSP format) seeing as the PS3 uses the Cell BE chip. Turns out the PS3 is slower than my Intel P4-HT!!! Sux! Conclusion. 1) Need more RAM!, 2)Need RSX driver (I have FW2.1 thus why I cant use), 3) Better support for the Cell BE.

If anyone can tell me how to get full potential of the Cell BE I'd appreciate it!

DrP.

[ps2devman]

Write specific code for SPU's

[lullu]

I decided to reinstall my system and now I´m running ps3 Xubuntu, performs much better than suse and it´s much closer to be used as regular desktop..
lullu

[leonhong]

Hello everyone! :)
:
:
:
1)Which distros and which environment do You use?
2)How does Your system perform?
3)Feel free to discuss related staff :)
:
:

1) Ubuntu+PS3RSX1.04
2) Slower in loading, but quite acceptable when running
3) The south bridge of PS3 is a SONY made CXD2973GB, which won't exceed 1.5 Gb/s or 192 Mb/s transferring speed. What is more, no driver optimization was adaptable to this I/O controller due to the lack of its spec data. This means: no burst r/w, no DMA block r/w, no any known accelerated r/w could be achieved if using the present PS3 Linux disk I/O driver. So it is apparent that the PS3 has a slower disk I/O rate under Linux if compared to a Intel based computer using the PIIX driver module. Don't try to improve the performance, unless SONY would be willing to release these accelerating drivers!!
IMHO, change to a quick HDD will be a little better, but won't go too far. Change to a quick driver is the right answer, that could never be achieved...

[jimparis]

3) The south bridge of PS3 is a SONY made CXD2973GB, which won't exceed 1.5 Gb/s or 192 Mb/s transferring speed.

In my tests PS3 has no problem attaining the hard drive's maximum transfer rate.

What is more, no driver optimization was adaptable to this I/O controller due to the lack of its spec data. This means: no burst r/w, no DMA block r/w, no any known accelerated r/w could be achieved if using the present PS3 Linux disk I/O driver. So it is apparent that the PS3 has a slower disk I/O rate under Linux if compared to a Intel based computer using the PIIX driver module. Don't try to improve the performance, unless SONY would be willing to release these accelerating drivers!!

That's just not true. Linux does not have it's own low-level I/O driver, it asks the hypervisor to perform all I/O operations. The hypervisor does all of the DMA stuff itself, and the missing specs don't affect us. Sony does a good job with the hypervisor and both GameOS and OtherOS benefit.

[IronPeter]

As far as I know it is possible to plug your SATA HDD into PS3. HDD is encrypted ( encryption on reserved SPU ), so all DMAs are perfomed by HV.

Probably, it is possible to extend XDR memory. Devkits have 512 MiBs of XDR memory ( it is open info, you can google it ). Probably devkits and retail consoles have the same XDR scheme.

[jimparis]

As far as I know it is possible to plug your SATA HDD into PS3.

Yes, the PS3 HDD is standard SATA.

HDD is encrypted ( encryption on reserved SPU ), so all DMAs are perfomed by HV.

The Linux partition is not encrypted. The OtherOS block of flash (4MB) is also not encrypted.

[IronPeter]

>The Linux partition is not encrypted

Thanks, I did not know.

[leonhong]

In my tests PS3 has no problem attaining the hard drive's maximum transfer rate.

Dear jimparis:
How to test the drive performance really get my attention. Do you have a tool to do this? Because I don't have such kind of tools, I use Ubuntu Live CD + partimage backup time to estimate its performance. On my PC (Pentium D 945 3.4Ghz) using the same Toshiba 120 GB 2.5" HDD as the source to backup to a external USB disk, it takes only 2/3 the time to backup the whole system!! Of course, the 2 Ubuntus installed on my PC and PS3 occupied resembled spaces. (PS3: 9.7Gb, 3hrs20min, PC:10.5Gb, 2hrs17min)
We all know that HV doing low level I/O for PS3 Linux, yet I doubt whether HV fully optimized or not.
Regards

PS: I know this is not a fair test because they differ even in system levels. Yet I don't have a better way to determine the HDD performance of PS3, and the result turned out to be so obvious. Maybe you can try it, and you will find out the difference!!

[jimparis]

I don't know, it's been a while :)
If I remember right I just tested it with "hdparm -tT /dev/ps3da" or similar.
If you dont care about the data on the disk you can also try "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/ps3da bs=1M count=100 oflag=direct" to test write speeds.