New Challenges ( FreeBSD on PS3 )

[Gavin Atkinson]

On Mon, 2006-12-11 at 00:11 -0400, Eprha Carvajal wrote:
> I was wondering if anyone though of installing FreeBSD in a PS3, i'm sure
> there are some big challanges there.

This is something I've been looking at for a few days.  As already
mentioned, a Cell is basically a dual threaded POWER chip, so I suspect
FreeBSD/ppc is the place to start, as these processors are quite
similar.  You can ignore the SPEs for now.  As I understand it, PS3 uses
OpenFirmware, so you may be able to get it booting over the network and
stuff easily, depending on how complete the implementation is.

A Cell emulator exists, so access to real hardware may not be necessary.
Although, it may be worthwhile somebody able to speak for FreeBSD
approaching IBM and trying to get one of their Cell-based blade servers,
for testing.  I'm guessing it will be a lot easier, and more beneficial
in the long run to start there than start with a PS3.

Linux code is at
http://lxr.linux.no/source/arch/powerpc/platforms/cell/?v=2.6.18

Gavin