New Challenges ( FreeBSD on PS3 )

[Philip S. Schulz]

on 11.12.2006 5:11 Uhr Eprha Carvajal said the following:
> 
> Is possible to the Sony/IBM/Toshiba documents for the Cell Processor ?
> Is there any specific linux patch set for the PS3 ? ( Looks like there is
> none, will have more info once i try both installs )
> What is the approach of LINUX with the cell processor and the 8 cores ?
> The NVIDIA RSX video Card was designed for the PS3, any chance they will
> support this ?
> 

The Cell Processer consists of PPE, a 64-Bit Power-core very similar to
the PowerPC 970 (aka "G5") and eight so-called SPEs, which are SIMD
units with local memory. You can run code compiled for the 970 directly
and w/o any modifications on the PPE but with some performance loss.

Linux uses the Power core to run the operating system and normal,
non-Cell-aware applications. It provides SPUfs [1] which allows
application developers to use the SPEs. The SPUfs is in the Linux tree
it seems, so that could serve as "documentation" but I'm not sure right
now if there is public documentation for the SPEs.

In order to run FreeBSD on the Cell you'd need a working port for the
PowerPC 970 CPU plus possibly some extra bits in order to be able to
boot on the PS3.

HTH,

Phil.

[1] http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-cell/

-- 
Don't fix it if it ain't broke.